I’m a gardening pro – my Dollar Tree hula hoop hack will keep birds & squirrels away from plants & it costs just $3.97

AN AVID gardener has shared her surprisingly cheap hack for keeping critters out of her garden.

Tanya Brown, from San Bernardino, California, revealed that all it took was two Dollar Tree hula hoops and some 99-cent netting and garden clips to stop birds and squirrels from burrowing in her carefully-planted garden beds.

Tanya has earned thousands of views on YouTube for her budget-friendly hack.

"This bed looks like it's in jail," she explained, showing off a netted flower bed.

"What actually is going on is I have birds who come through here every day, all day. They take these pointy little acorns that fall off the trees and they push them down into the soil.

"They do this in my beds, in my containers, anything that has soft soil, they will push them down inside of it," she went on.

"And then the squirrels come behind them and they dig it up.

"So what I did is, I went to the Dollar Tree and I bought hula hoops for one dollar," she explained.

Tanya cut the two hula hoops open, sticking the ends in the soil to create two arches on either side of her gardening bed.

She then draped garden netting she purchased at the 99-cent store over the top and secured it in place with garden clips, also from the 99-cent store.

"So no more bird problems, no more squirrels, for less than three dollars," she said.

Tanya also offered another cheap trick for protecting potted plants: Over a tower of pots, she drapes a mesh laundry bag — also from the Dollar Tree.

"The sunlight still goes through, air still goes through, and you're able to water if you don't want to remove it," she said. "It's just a simple laundry bag for one dollar at the Dollar Tree."

Impressed viewers have called her a "genius" and "brilliant," with several vowing to visit Dollar Tree to copy her ideas.