Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays. When I was 5 or so it fell on my birthday exactly. My mom was an expert Easter Basket constructor. One of my favorite stuffed animals was a bunny puppet with a squeaking head named Squeaker, or when I was sick, Feel Better Bunny. I loved the Watership Down film from the early 90’s, even though the blood red fields scene was a bit disturbing. The Tales of Beatrix Potter and the Velveteen Rabbit were some of the first books I remember. There were some pet rabbits down the I could go visit. Truth be told, I still am a big fan of rabbits and think they are very cute creatures. Even though in the Boston area they are…
A Voracious Menace!
Over the past 15 years of gardening the the Boston area, I can tell you there are no 100% rabbit safe plants. That’s hard to hear I know, but I have seen it all.
What I can tell you for sure though, is that the subculture of rabbit society dictates voraciousness based on geographical location. Plainly speaking, it depends on your neighborhood.
There seems to be subgroups of rabbits that learn to eat more aggressively. This could be due to larger rabbit populations, perhaps a lack of predators. Perhaps an abundance of food? I’ve noticed in Cambridge for example, even just a distance of a few blocks changes rabbit diets.
It may be that in environments that have less natural spaces and more cultivated gardens, the rabbits have adapted to having a taste for some of the popular introduced species. Unfortunately, I’ve learned all this from some heartbreaking failures.
I do have to admit I’ve never seen rabbit damage on lavender, thyme, or sage, and that daffodils continue to be a safe bet. Salvia and cantmint are generally safe too, but I have seen damage on salvias in the most savage rabbit areas. Is Russian sage safe? Yes! Are alliums safe? Not always! Yep I’ve seen some rabbit nibbles on spring alliums, but they are generally still quite safe.
How about peonies and yarrow? I have seen a couple gardens where rabbits damaged peonies in the spring but, they’re not usually eaten so in most situations I’d consider it safe. Yarrow is a good example of what is not rabbit safe, but I would still plant in rabbit-run neighborhoods. The reason being that much of the time rabbits won’t eat it all the way down to the ground, they’ll trim it with their nibbling. In a growing site that yarrow is happy in, the plant will continue spreading into its thick mat form despite some nibbling here and there. Is it annoying when they nibble off the flower stalk? Yes! But consider it a pinching back that prolongs the bloom. Again, perhaps you’re in an area where they will attack your yarrow down to the ground every Tuesday, so maybe you’re fighting a fiercer battle. But in most cases, I’d still give yarrow a try.
This brings me to my next approach when it comes to planting in a ravenous rabbit area. In an initial consultation, I will gather as much info as I can from a client about their site. Especially around what they may have tried in the past, successes and failures, and clues to why. With all of the factors to consider in a planting site, what it comes down to is my best educated and experienced guess at what will work best for this particular client in this particular place. When it comes to rabbits, sometimes the best course of action is to begin with a little experimentation.
I will often suggest that we start in one section of a garden, or with just a few plants to specifically test out how tenacious the rabbit pressure is. If I come back a week after planting a couple plants that I’d consider usually safe, and they are all eaten down to the ground, I know we’re in fraught territory. All the plants already mentioned earlier in this article are ideal for very sunny sites. Those plants are very good at turning harsh sunlight into very fragrant volatile oils that are too spicy or pungent for rabbits to tolerate. But what about the rest of the garden situations?
In the photo of the tree above, you can see it’s not just leaves and stems they go for, but fruit trees and some shrub bark is on the menu as well. You really need to protect the bark of fruit trees before autumn even. When temperatures cool and plant growth slows, rabbits have less to choose from as they’re trying to fatten up for winter. They will go for the bark of fruit trees, especially apple and peach, before you think they are desperate enough to do so. If the bark around the circumference of the trunk is removed (girdled), the tree has very little chance of surviving. In winter when there are deep snows, sometimes rabbits can reach much further up a tree trunk because they’re on top on the snow.
Rabbits are the main pest I encounter in more urban situations. When out in the suburbs and more rural areas, deer (and sometimes bottomless groundhogs) become more of a problem. In those situations you have to protect precious young trees with almost full height tubes. The ones pictures above on the left are designed to let light in and air flow so they can actually be left on for several years. The type in the picture on the right are more suitable for rabbit protection. It is not advised that the sprials be left on all year, in case you accidentally girdle or harbour insects. I think its fine to leave them on for most of the year (give them a summer break) or at least remove or unwrap to some degree for a little bit to make sure the trunk has space and can breathe sufficiently. Just pay attention. When trees are mature the attack on bark is less likely, but when it doubt, keep it covered.
The last section of this rabbit rant will be about paths of movement, restriction and prevention. One thing my clients and I have learned over the years in our rabbit reconnaissance is that they tend to be creatures of habit. Not just what they prefer to eat, but they have schedules (pocketwatches?) and they tend to start off in one area at a certain time of day or night and then move through gardens, under fences, across roads, on their daily missions of eternal snacking. That may be why the liriope by the driveway has been left untouched for years, but the liriope I planted next to the house was eaten down to the ground.
The surest way to exclude rabbits from your garden is a fence that touches the ground and doesn’t leave any openings for them to gain entry. If that’s unrealistic, you can set up cages (wire fencing staked into the ground), which aren’t the prettiest sight, but do the trick if we are trying to establish plants in a small area. I’ve not bought them personally, but some people invest in pretty wire cloches, which bring a Victorian feel to your garden aesthetic.
I’ll recommend the product Rabbit Scram, a granular form of biologic smelly stuff that you sprinkle or dump on and next to plants to deter them. It does have to be reapplied after a good rain or watering though, or else the smell washes away. It can get expensive too, if you are reapplying it often and throughout the season. Hopefully you’ll only need it for part of the year, perhaps when the spring flush of tender growth coincides with the population boom.
Can you appease the rabbit clan with offerings of your salad scraps, and hope that they leave your plants alone? One client in Cambridge has made friends with the rabbits, leaves them carrots and lettuce every day, and even gets them to eat out of her hand (not recommended). Well the neighbor next door became a client and she was desperate to find a solution because a very healthy rabbit population was eating every single plant she tried to grow!
When I started this article I fully intended it to be educational and helpful, but I might have just ranted about rabbit-based problems the whole time. Happy gardening, everyone! And good luck!