Rabbits & Your Garden

For many people their gardening efforts are repeatedly frustrated by the attention of ravenous hordes of rabbits. With a few alterations & some careful planning the Lagomorphic tide can be turned.

Rabbits & hares are very effective plant destroying machines, not merely eating enough to get-by, their insatiable appetite for new things & destruction causes much damage throughout the garden.

Speculative chewing of nearly everything to find what tastes best, the uprooting of new plants, the stripping of bark from trees, and of course digging holes in your lawn for you to turn your ankle in, all make rabbits many gardener’s most hated enemy.

So what can be done?

You could find a good recipe for rabbit stew, get an air rifle or ferret & go on a spree, though as everyone knows nothing breeds quite like rabbits & in most locations new bunnies will soon move in to replace the killed ones.

The best long-term answer to a rabbit problem

is to protect your garden as best as is practicable by fencing.

Erecting a rabbit-proof fence is a time consuming process & hard work involving a lot of digging, but it is still the best way to protect your garden where total rabbit eradication is not an option.

A chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link and a rabbit-proof fence is not rabbit-proof if it does not entirely surround the garden. Rabbits are small, flexible & wily creatures just waiting to exploit any chink, so check the fence regularly & patch holes.

Rabbits & especially hares are accomplished jumpers so any fence should be 4’-5’ (120-150cm) high above ground, of a galvanised hexagonal mesh with gaps of not more than 1” (25mm) in diameter. The tricky & time consuming bit is the digging down to sink the bottom 1’ (30cm) of the fence into the ground, bending the lower 6” (15cm) outwards to discourage them burrowing into your green & pleasant land. The posts need not be as stout or as deeply driven as a stock or deer fence, but you still don’t want it to fall over! Round  2” (5cm) posts at 7-10’ (2-3m) spacing should do.

Poor Peter Rabbit is unable to get under the buried galvanised chicken wire to the flowers beyond, others like the beautiful, tough but poisonous monkshood, Aconitum carmichaelii Wilsonii Group, rabbits will avoid eating.

Where fencing & eradication is not a practical option one must learn to live with the rabbits & to garden with them in mind.

Flower beds may be somewhat protected by small enclosures of fencing.

For individual trees tree guards may be used, these are available in several designs, all ugly. They form a cylinder of mesh or solid plastic around the trunk to keep the rabbits & hares out, other designs work by wrapping a stiff self-expanding spiral of plastic around the trunk of your young tree.

There is probably no such thing as a truly rabbit-proof plant, they will usually try something before deciding they don’t like it. Hares are particularly selective eaters & by careful avoidance of planting rabbit fodder & sticking to that which is poisonous or unpalatable something resembling a garden can emerge.

Where a rabbit visitation is an occasional rather than frequent event using a good number of rabbit-resistant plants in the most accessible areas of the garden may well be more sensible than spending lots of time & money on a fence.

I have come across many lists of so-called rabbit & deer-proof plants in my time & for nearly every plant on those list someone has told me how the rabbits, hares, sheep or deer always make a bee-line for it. Still there are plant that are definitely preferred over others, different populations are reputed to have different tastes so what works in some places may not be so effective elsewhere. Some of these resistant plants are toxic to humans too, so parents & grandparents  with little people running around might wish to avoid them.

Overleaf is a fairly long list of the plants less likely to be bothered by rabbits and other grazers, all will generally grow well in Wester Ross, though some will dislike being too near the sea.

Members of the iris family, Iridaceae,  are pretty much disliked by everything, so irises themselves, Crocosmia & Libertia are worth a go, many of the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae are poisonous or inedible so try Aconite, Anemone or Clematis.

A list of non-woody rabbit resistant plants:

Acanthus

Aconitum (monkshood)

Agapanthus

Ajuga reptans (bugle)

Alchemilla mollis (lady’s mantle, bit of a weed)

Allium (onions, leeks, garlic, etc.)

Alstroemeria (A. aurea is a vigorous spreader)

Anaphalis

Anemone hupehensis & A. × hybrida (these are the lovely late flowering Japanese anemones)

Antirrhinum (snapdragons)

Aquilegia (columbines)

Aster

Astilbe

Bergenia

Brunnera macrophylla

Chionodoxa

Colchicum (crocus)

Convallaria majalis (lily-of-the-valley)

Crocosmia (Montbretias)

Cyclamen

Cynaria (cardoon or globe artichoke)

Dicentra

Digitalis (foxgloves)

Doronicum

Echinops  (globe thistles)

Epimedium

Eryngium agavifolium

Erythronium

Eupatorium

Euphorbia (spurges)

Fritillaria

Galanthus nivalis (snowdrops)

Gentiana asclepiadea (willow gentian)

Geranium sanguineum

Helleborus

Hemerocallis (day-lilies)

Heuchera

Hyacinthoides non-scripta (bluebells)

Iris

Kniphofia (red hot pokers)

Lamium

Leucojum

Lithodora diffusa

Lysimachia clethroides (goosefoot, a spreader)

Macleaya cordata (plume poppy)

Malva moschata (mallow)

Mentha (mints)

Muscari  (grape hyacinth)

Myosotis (forget-me-nots)

Narcissus (daffs)

Nepeta × faassenii

Omphalodes

Origanum vulgare (marjoram)

Paeonia

Papaver somniferum (field poppy)

Penstemon

Persicaria

Phormium tenax (New Zealand flax)

Polemonium (Jacob’s ladder)

Polygonatum × hybridum

Primula

Pulmonaria

Romneya coulteri

Salvia × Superba

Saxifraga × urbium (London pride)

Schizostylis coccinea

Sedum

Stachys byzantina (lamb’s lugs)

Tradescantia

Trillium grandiflorum

Trollius (globe flower)

Tulipa (tulips)

Verbascum thapsi

Verbena

Viola odorata

Zantedeschia (calla / arum lily)

Rabbits dislike ferns.

Trees & shrubs that rabbits will avoid:

Alnus (alder)

Araucaria araucana (monkey puzzle)

Arbutus (strawberry trees)

Aucuba japonica (spotted laurel)

Berberis

Betula (birch trees)

Buddleja

Callistemon (bottle brush)

Ceanothus

Cistus

Clematis

Cordyline (cabbage tree)

Cornus (dogwoods)

Cytisus  (brooms)

Elaeagnus (deer appear to like these though)

Escallonia

Eucalyptus

Euonymus

Fatsia japonica

Fuchsia

Gaultheria mucronata (Pernettya)

Hebe whipcord types

Hippophae rhamnoides (sea buckthorn)

Hydrangea

Hypericum calycinum (rose of Sharon)

Laburnum

Laurus nobilis (bay tree)

Lavatera

Leptospermum

Ligustrum ovalifolium (privet)

Lonicera (honeysuckle)

Olearia

Pinus nigra (black pine)

Rhododendron (including Azaleas)

Ribes (flowering currents)

Rosa

Rosmarinus officinalis

Sambucus species (elder)

Solanum

Teucrium fruticans

Vinca (periwinkle)

Weigela

If you have a rabbit problem please let us know what has done well and what has become dish of the day for Bugs Bunny.

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