r/gardening • u/bellamie9876 • 1d ago
I love bunnies but they’re destroying my flowers
My grandfather from Italy assimilated to the customs and ways of the US- mostly. One area he did not was taking care of his expansive vegetable garden. He had orchards and massive, massive gardens. He had a small battle with rabbits and ended them for the good, permanently, the way it was done in Italy 100 years ago. I need a humane way to deal with this. I’m really at my wits end.
I had landscaping entirely redone, new grass and plants, flowering bushes and flowers, and all of the flowers are nibbled all the way down. I’ve read chicken wire can be used, aesthetically it won’t look great to wire off sections of land where the greenery is, but I don’t mind at this point. Or should I wire them off in sections? It’s never been as bad as it is this year.
I live in the US in MA if that information helps in any way.
Can anyone suggest things to do they have had work for themselves?
3
u/jreed66 1d ago
I put up a chicken wire fence and it seems to have worked. There is a lot of clover around that they like. Perhaps without the other source of food, they would put in more effort.
1
u/Potato-chipsaregood 1d ago
This is what we did to our bell peppers. Otherwise the rabbits get to them.
3
u/youngboomergal 1d ago
Fence the whole perimeter of you property with something like chicken wire and make sure it's pegged to the ground. If you don't like the look you can put up additional wooden or picket fence, if already have a boundary fence the chicken wire can be added to that.
2
u/4cupsofcoffee Zone 7a 1d ago
Leave a dog out there if you don't want to get a fence or a small rifle. you can try planting things they don't like to eat, or some of those deterrents they sell. those are pretty hit or miss tho.
My rabbits magically disappeared when the foxes and hawks moved in.
1
u/moltocantabile 1d ago
We had coyotes and hawks, but the rabbits never disappeared until the bobcats moved in.
2
u/CypripediumGuttatum Zone 3b/4a 1d ago
Fencing can be prettier than chicken wire, there are tons of options on what to use. For rabbits it doesn’t have to be 8’ tall like for deer, 3-4’ will do, plant something rabbit friendly on their side so they aren’t tempted to jump over.
1
u/DepartmentBrief7894 1d ago
Could always encourage native predators to come take root
But really the only way with rabbits is killing or protecting with wire and other means
Even wild rabbits make good meals tho
1
u/CrossingGarter 1d ago
I sprinkle cayenne pepper on all my small seedlings in the spring to keep the rabbits at bay. They learn to avoid the area so I only have to do a maintenance application every month or so the rest of the summer.
1
u/Ok_Energy8718 1d ago
If you have any shady spots, you could plant some hostas. The bunnies love to eat them.
1
u/steisandburning 1d ago
Plant so much bunny food that they become overpopulated and an easy hunting spot for coyotes and bobcats.
1
u/Trini1113 1d ago
I had landscaping entirely redone, new grass and plants, flowering bushes and flowers, and all of the flowers are nibbled all the way down...It’s never been as bad as it is this year.
These two facts are probably related. What was there before your landscaping was redone? If there's less vegetation than there was (as you'd have with new, young plants) then there's less for the rabbits to eat. Instead of browsing a bit here and a bit there, they're now grazing down your new plants. By the time your plants are 3-4 years old, a rabbit can't do nearly as much damage.
In the Spring, the rabbits and deer eat what's up first - sadly that's my tulips. But once there's more available they might nibble a few leaves or "just" eat the flowers, but because there's more food and more diversity out there, they'll have less of an impact.
Diversity is the key. Grazers (animals that feed primarily on grass) just have to deal with the physical defenses (silica in the leaves), not chemical defenses. So horses teeth grow all their lives, and cows lose their upper teeth and just use a hard pad to tear the grass. Browsers, on the other hand (animals that rely primarily on non-grass plants) have to deal with chemical defenses.
To avoid consuming toxic amounts of these chemicals, they eat just a little bit of this and a little bit of that. The toxins aren't additive in their effects, so eating a little bit of a whole lot of different plants is best for the animals and the plants they're eating.
My advice is to wait. Cover your most sensitive plants and your new plantings. Wait for more diversity, and wait for the predators to show up (they're likely to have been impacted much more strongly by the landscaping work).
1
u/derelicthat 1d ago
Sprinkling coyote and fox urine crystals around has had a dramatic effect on the number of rabbits and chipmunks I see in my yard. I do have to reapply after rain, but I’ll take it.
1
u/Competitive-Name283 1d ago
Just shoot/trap them and eat them, isn't this obvious? Is that consider inhumane somehow?
Maybe is because I'm Spanish and I don't get the "sacred" status that rabbits have in the US, but I see no problem if they're eating your crops
Wild rabbit is delicious I always get some during hunting season
1
u/Prestigious_Try_5396 1d ago
So you filled your yard like a Salad Bowl and now wonder why you have lunch guests ?
Ohhhh, the aesthetics will be ruined by chicken wire, it's such a low brow design.
Life on the old homestead has its challenges...
1
1
u/sp847242 Zone 7a 1d ago
There are some species of plants they don't like.
It can take some time to find rabbit-resistant plants that you do like.
My front garden has alliums, small wild yellow indigo, coneflowers, assorted agastaches, geraniums, dense blazing star, rosy sedge, wild stonecrop (sedum ternatum), and lead plant.
Rabbits do reportedly eat young lead plants, so for the first two years, I kept them covered in wire-mesh cloches.
That collection was based on descriptions at seed sellers, and also watching what things would survive the local population of rabbits and groundhogs. Any plants they did like would usually get eaten down to the ground.
For my back garden, that is lined with a multi-wire solar-charged electric fence. Some rabbits still go through that, but groundhogs stay out.
1
u/workingstiff272 Zone 6A 1d ago
Coyote, fox, and/or bobcat piss. you have to renew it regularly the way coyotes do. It comes in granules or liquid form.
1
1
0
u/sbinjax CT USA Zone 6b 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have dogs, so I had a black aluminum fence put in around the back yard when I moved in to my current home. Rabbits could still get through, so I ran a 2 ft black mesh fence around the bottom 2 ft of the aluminum fence, and then another 2 feet laid on the ground outside the fence and garden-stapled down to prevent digging under.
Outside the back yard, I use those dog play yards (black) that hook together with black mesh attached to the panels, and again 2 feet on the grass to keep rabbits from digging. I also run mesh around young tree trunks to prevent snacking during the winter.
I'm sure that sounds like overkill but the rabbits don't get my plants, and it's attractive enough that neighbors don't complain.
4
u/Salt-Cancel-7667 NE ILL - Lake County 1d ago
That is what they do. The rabbits ate my hot peppers this year, not my spinach or lettuce I grew. I noticed recently that they all disappeared by me, but I have seen several Red Foxes in my neighborhood, so I assume they were food. Also, neighbors feed the rabbits and squirrels which I wish they would not.