Rabbits

A large rabbit has been wrecking the plants in my flower beds (blessedly, they seem unwilling to climb a little to get to the potted plants). I sprayed them with Messina's Rabbit Stopper (bright red spray bottle) and it seems to have done the trick except I also noticed at about the same time the rabbit seemed to disappear (I sued to see him all over the yard) so now I don't know if a hawk or owl chowed down the rabbit or the Messina's is working. Now all of a sudden I have at least one very small rabbit hopping around and I don't want to come out some morning and find all my replants ruined. I sprayed again, of course, but wonder if it was the Messina's or a predator that stopped the problem the first time.

Does anyone have experience with what rabbits tend to go after - they don't seem to bother plants (even annuals) that are fairly well established... or have I just been lucky with those?

Does anyone have experience with this Messina product (rotten egg masked with mint and other strong smelling herbs)? Any other suggestions? Just what does usually wipe out grown rabbits? We've always had them in the Sping and often they disappear by mid to early summer.

I have so many problems with deer --the rabbits get away with a lot !!!

I have not noticed that the established plants were any safer from the rabbits as compared to the newer plants ---- but new growth is attractive no matter the age of the plant.

The rabbits get the coneflowers every year! I haven't yanked them up though - I figure if I leave --maybe other stuff will be spared.

So new growth and tender young is more of a problem, you'd say, then established plants? I have a lot of plants (zenia, bachelor buttons, cosmos, and sweetpea) all getting quite tall and budding but now flowers yet.

Have you tried any of the sprays on the market and if so, results?

OK, this is going to sound weird, but the big rabbit was your problem. I had an incredibly destructive one (60 tulip bulbs in a single winter - just kept coming up and digging them up one by one). I wondered why he was not only large, but fat!

I now have a little bunny, and no damage. While there are a zillion lily stems out there for the little guy, he seems more interested in nibbling my grass. Is he doing this? Talk about young and tender growth - new grass.

See if that's what the little guy is doing, if you can catch him in the act.

donnamack... good point and yes I HAVE seen him nibbling away at grass, although just this AM I found him in the flowerbed so I'm not sure if he was about to dine there or just sniffing around (actually what prompted me to place this post). Have you or any one else had experience with spray deterents like this Messina stuff.

I swear by Bonide Shotgun Deer and Rabbit Repellent. The stuff that works in it is actually thiram. It's a horticultural fungicide they can't stand the smell of. It works very well, and it has a sticking agent, which helps it to adhere. You might be able to find it at a garden center or hardware store.

It's funny that no one wants to talk about what really works in these things. I have been using products with a 5-11% concertration of thiram succesfully for years.

by next anti rabbit purchase, maybe i'll try this. The Messina stuff SEEMS to be working (and supposedly lasts a month) but as I mentioned I'm not sure the improvement isn't just because of the disappearance of the rabbit, And I DO wonder where these critters go (would be interesting to see a hawk sweep down and carry one away). The Messina stuff (I was told by the Big Box Girl) has rotten egg masked with herbal oils (stinks anyway) and she said they switched to selling that because it supposedly works so well, although Big Box being what they are, it probably just has a better profit margin. Hearing about sure fire, tested stuff here owuld be very helpful.

I had rabbits in my yard all the time BUT I found the best product and it works. Liquid Fence. It doesn't clog the sprayer and I don't have to re-apply after rain. Amazing stuff truly. I used PlantSkydd and it worked ok - but it was gross to use and clogged the sprayer. Liquid Fence seems to "train" the rabbits to stay out of my yard once they get a whiff of it in the garden beds. After the initial thorough spraying in the spring, I just give the beds a light spritz here and there as new growth appears. It does have an "eggy" odor for the first few hours, but the next day it is undetectable.

Rabbit story - two years ago in the spring, I was admiring my garden over a cup of coffee on my patio. I was thinking "Wow the daylily my sister just shared with me is doing Fantastic. Boy I am doing something right here, blah blah blah." Patting myself on the back, etc. Well I come home from work that night and just want another peek at my garden in the back so I just headed around the corner. There in the middle of my new daylilies, was my rabbit "friend"!! And he had daylilles draped out of both corners of his mouth, busily munching and mowing through the plant. I shrieked and took after him. This gardening hobby has turned me into such a gentle soul.

GKayfes... thanks so much for the advice (and fun story)!

Michangelo - I have see a hawk take a rabbit. About 5 years ago (on Christmas Day, no less) we had a mature rabbit having breakfast under one of our bird feeders...enter hawk, exit rabbit. The whole thing happened so fast that we just looked at one another in amazement kind of like "Did you just see what I think I just saw?"


As for rabbit repellant, I use cayenne pepper. Rabbits hate the taste and will look elsewhere for their next meal. It's cheap and its organic but the downside is that it needs to be reapplied after rain.

ZG... Thanks for this good advice (and interesting story)!

Ah rabbits. Oh, that we would have just one. They even jump up onto the tope of my strawbales that I am growing veggies on this year. Have had to enclose them (just the melon, squash, bean section) with chicken wire. It works. Put a little hardware cloth fence around bulbs that were being eaten as fast as they came up. Yes, they do prefer young shoots as evidenced by my three new fountain grass plants all but disappearing overnight several years ago. We plant now with hardware cloth 'baskets' in the ground to stave off gophers and have the basket stick out of ground 6-8 inches against rabbits. When we moved here 6 years ago our also new neighbor labored at putting a huge lawn (1/5 acre) in front of his house (he has 2.5 acres). One night after it started growing we were leaving and the headlights hit the grass and it looked like a scene from a 'B' movie with the lawn covered with rabbits. He never did have to mow that lawn. Course it never did really look like a lawn. Another neighbor put a smaller patch of sod in, then surrounded it with low electric fence and that worked - but it would not be good for our dogs! If our dogs stayed out all the time we would not have bunnies!

quiltygirl, you have just described my worst nightmare! lol

LOL

I have a rabbit that keeps worming her way into my garden, despite the chicken wire fence. I couldn't figure out how she was getting in! I cornered her the other day, and lo and behold, she *climbed* up the chicken wire and vaulted herself over and through the lattice work! I have never seen a rabbit scale a fence before. I now have chicken wire 4' high on my fence....

As to their preferred food, I was told that baby bunnies have no sense of taste or smell, so their destruction is more experimentation (such as with the rabbit who severed every single Clematis vine in my garden 4" above the ground). The recently ousted rabbit loved my Hakone Grass, beans, and Marigolds, of all things. She had started in on my sweet potato vines, and had a great time munching on the Cornelian Cherries on the ground. I figure rabbits, like deer and humans, develop their own particular taste, so it's just a guessing game as to what will catch their fancy.

Some of the things my rabbits are crazy about are blue fescue, phlox subulata, zinnias, quinces and any small sapling tree.

When all the wild, new springs choice nibbles are gone, it appears the rabbits will eat anything - no matter that the plant tag has the rabbit icon shown with a line through it!