The eastern cottontail rabbit can be a pesky garden companion, so here are tips to help keep him away!
Controlling the Rabbit Population in your Yard
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Got rabbits? These small mammals can do a number on young plants, so prevention is paramount. Aside from fencing, there are many old-time remedies and other solutions that will keep them out of the garden patch! Plus, see a list of plants that rabbits tend to ignore.
Why Would You Keep Rabbits Away?
Anyone who tills the soil regards the rabbit as more than just a cute threat to the carrot patch. This long-eared animal possesses a voracious appetite for all kinds of fresh vegetation—woody plants, perennials, annuals, vegetables, and berries. In fact, a menu of rabbit favorites is so ridiculously long that it’s easier to list the few plants they don’t enjoy.
Rabbits also have an extremely high reproductive potential, so keeping them around might quickly cause a total garden infestation. They can produce up to three litters of six babies per year in the north and up to six litters of three babies yearly in the south. The first litter appears in March in the north, year-round elsewhere. The gestation period is 29 days. That’s only about 8 days more than a chicken egg takes to hatch!
Your backyard bunny’s primary concern is to eat without being eaten, a difficult task given that rabbits are relished by more than two dozen species of predators. Nibbling your petunias is not a carefree picnic but a danger-fraught mission. However, if your neighborhood bunny can squeeze through a hole in your garden fence, it will find time to be able to munch in safety.
You can check our tips for keeping your plants safe from rabbits, but try to regard rabbits as Beatrix Potter did—part of a peaceful, pastoral landscape. Then protect the plants that you and the bunnies really love, and don’t worry about the rest.
How to Identify Rabbits in Your Garden
Of the nine species of North American cottontail rabbits, the eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) that is our most abundant and annoying. Ranging from Boston to Boulder and south into Mexico, this bunny-about-town is rarely found in forests, preferring instead brushy fence rows, field edges, brush piles, and—you guessed it—landscaped backyards. Its fondness for flowers, vegetables, bark, and bulbs often results in pruned peppers and clipped cosmos.
Even though its nicknames are adorable (among them bunny, bunny rabbit, and cottontail), and you’ll probably want to befriend it once you see its cute ears, the eastern cottontail can be a bothersome pest. It is gray or brownish, with a short tail and big ears. It can weigh 2 to 4 pounds, be 15 to 19 inches long, and live for 12 to 15 months. Its vocal call is almost silent, but it will emit a scream when threatened. Its famous features include a short white tail resembling a cotton ball and long, tapered ears.
Security is a pile of brush, leaves, or another animal’s abandoned burrow for an eastern cottontail. Unlike their European cousins, these rabbits do not dig intricate burrows or warrens but make do with what they find. Rabbits rarely leave their shelters in broad daylight, preferring early morning or evening instead. Like most animals, they are sensitive to the change in day length as spring approaches. For rabbits, the longer days signal the start of two things: breeding season and spring dining.
Rabbit Damage
Rabbits are voracious eaters and leave clean-cut damage. Check the leaves and stems of your plants for cleanly cut damage; insects and other pests usually leave jagged edges on damaged plants. This clean-cut damage often happens at ground level, as rabbits tend to eat the yummy green shoots of tulips and other plants.
These low mowers graze close to the ground, sniff out the first tender young shoots, and crop them short. They love to munch on flowers, clover, peas, lettuce, beans, and more. Many of these plants are also the favorites of woodchucks or groundhogs, so check for burrows before deciding you have rabbit damage. Once your plants have passed the seedling stage, they are usually safe from rabbit damage.
Although bunny nibbling occurs in every season, it’s especially discouraging in the early spring when rabbits mercilessly munch the tender green shoots of plants. As a Connecticut gardener remembers, “My tulips were just poking through the snow when suddenly it looked like they’d been weed-whacked. Cut clean off! I blame the bunnies—their little paw prints were everywhere.”
Cute, yes. But behind those eyes lies an eternal hunger!
How to Prevent Rabbits in the Garden
The best way to keep rabbits out of the garden and prevent rabbit damage is through physical prevention methods such as fencing. Though we’ve mostly been discussing eastern cottontails, remember that these tips should work for any type of rabbit that loves to munch on your plants!
- The most effective way of keeping out rabbits is chicken wire fencing. Install a fence that is 4 feet high and bury it at least 6 inches deep. Bend the top foot of the fence away from the garden like a security fence so they can’t climb or jump over it.
- For bulbs, try a dome or cage of chicken wire secured over the bed.
- To begin with, focus on keeping rabbits from setting foot into your garden. Many old-time remedies rely on spreading various products around the garden’s perimeter, such as dried blood meal or human hair. Sprinkle dried blood meal on the surface around all your plants as early in the season as possible, and repeat after heavy rain. (Note: If you have dogs, don’t try this method because they might be attracted to the scent and start digging up your garden themselves!)
- Rabbits don’t like to stray far from their shelters, so try to reduce the possible rabbit homes around your yard. Rake away piles of brush and leaves, fill in abandoned burrows, and seal any holes under sheds or structures. If a rabbit doesn’t have a place to live or hide nearby, hopefully, it won’t stay and munch. Rabbits will also breed much more if they have a good habitat available—all the more reason to have no vacancy!
More Ways to Deter Rabbits in the Garden
Hardware
As mentioned above, the most effective solution is wire fencing. But also:
- Protect tree trunks: Use cylinders of 1/4-inch mesh hardware cloth to keep rabbits from nibbling on young fruit and landscape trees. The cylinders should extend higher than a rabbit’s reach while the rabbit is standing on the expected snow depth, and they should stand 1 to 2 inches out from the tree trunk.
- Protect patio plants: Some people protect plants with individual “collars” of tin cans or screening so that the plants may reach a less vulnerable size. Put the collar around each stem for protection.
Repellents
- Rabbits are such great sniffers, and there are several commercially available rabbit-repellent sprays that are nontoxic. They often use smelly ingredients such as rotten eggs to deter the furry creatures. Commercial products using pungent garlic oil are also worth a try.
- Some of the deer techniques related to odor are also said to work against rabbits.
- Irish Spring soap shavings placed in little drawstring bags around the garden have been said to help keep rabbits away.
- Rabbits also dislike the smell of onions, so try planting onions around your garden to further deter the furry creatures.
- One of our readers grows extra hot peppers, boils them in an old soup pot on the BBQ, and applies the liquid to the garden. Powdered red pepper sprinkled around the garden or on targeted plants also helps; you need to reapply after rainfall.
- Legend has it that rabbits are terrified of their own reflection, so try an old-time rabbit remedy and place large, clear glass jars of water throughout the garden. Garden centers sell ready-made reflectors, as well as other devices—crouching cats, fake snakes, menacing owls—designed to frighten bunnies away from your plants.
- You can also make your own spray! See recipe.
DIY Rabbit Repellent Spray
Make a bad-tasting rabbit cocktail by grinding together:
- 3 hot peppers
- 3 large onions
- 1 whole bunch of garlic.
Add water to cover, and place in a covered container overnight. Strain and add enough water to make a gallon of the mixture. Spray onto plants, repeating after rainfall.
Plants That Rabbits Dislike
According to bunny experts, rabbits have plant preferences based on taste, nutritional value, the presence of poison or prickles, and ease of availability. Their tastes in food can also vary by region and season, so not all plants work for all rabbits. Be tricky and tend plants that rabbits don’t find very appetizing.
Rabbits tend to avoid some of the same plants as deer and Japanese beetles. If you’d like to control all these pests, check our list of deer-resistant plants and the best and worst plants for Japanese beetles to know which plants might do best. Choose plants such as forsythia, lilac bush, zinnias, daffodils, lavender, and snapdragons for rabbits. This might help to reduce your rabbit population. This is not a guaranteed solution, as hungry rabbits will eat almost anything, but filling your garden with these plants might make your garden less appetizing than another one. Here are more plants that rabbits dislike:
WOODY PLANTS
Azalea (Rhododendron sp.)
Boxwood (Buxus sp.)
Bush cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa)
Butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii)
Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster sp.)
Japanese maple (Acer palmatum)
Mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia)
Rhododendron (Rhododendron sp.)
Tatarian dogwood (Cornus alba)
Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera)
PERENNIALS
Adam’s needle (Yucca filamentosa)
Creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera)
Foam flower (Tiarella cordifolia)
Lamb’s ear (Stachys byzantina)
Meadow rue (Thalictrum rochebrunianum)
Peony (Paeonia hybrids)
Perennial salvia ‘East Friesland’ (Salvia x superba)
Primrose (Primula x polyantha)
Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia)
Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ (Sedum)
Speedwell (Veronica sp.)
Spring cinquefoil (Potentilla verna)
Stokes’ aster (Stokesia laevis)
ANNUALS
Four o’clock flower (Mirabilis jalapa)
Geranium, zonal and bedding (Pelargonium x hortorum)
Mexican ageratum (Ageratum houstonianum)
Spiderflower (Cleome hasslerana)
Vinca (Catharanthus roseus)
Wax begonia (Begonia x semperflorens-cultorum)
BULBS
Daffodil (Narcissus sp.)
Hyacinth (Hyacinth orientalis)
Persian onion (Allium giganteum)
VEGETABLES
Asparagus
Leeks
Onions
Potatoes
Rhubarb
Summer squash
Tomatoes
HERBS
Basil
Marjoram
Mint
Oregano
Parsley
Savory
Tarragon
Do you have any tips for controlling rabbits in your garden or yard? Please post below!
Catherine Boeckmann
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Rabbits do not like the smell of coffee grounds. I place several used plastic plant containers, with approximately 2 cups used coffee grounds, and anchor to the ground with a bamboo stake in my vegetable bed. Prior to doing this, they would eat my beet leaves, kale and spinach to the ground. They also like to eat sweet potato vines, but the vines would grow aggressively and continue to grow and produce potatoes. The coffee grounds stopped the eating of my plants. I am not a big coffee drinker, but I have a Starbucks that gives me free grounds weekly which I use in many different ways as I garden. One additional note....... the rabbits have never eaten my carrots. I guess the Bugs Bunny comic was not written by a gardener!
You said rabbits don't like parsley. Well those cute babies ate both flat leaf & curly leaf parsley! The bed has out of control mint & chives (do they count as onion?). I just stuck an old hunk of hair over the remnant stems. Will see.
Argh! They can be quite the pest! While these are plants that tend to be avoided by rabbits, the little buggers will eat anything if they are hungry enough.
Rabbits do not jump and rabbits do not climb, so a very short 6" fence around your young tender shoots will keep them safe. Once the plants are big enough that the rabbits won't eat them, take the fence down (for ease of weeding, etc) and store until next spring. Small loopey fences are available in Dollar Stores or anywhere garden supplies are sold. No need to put in 4 foot high fences - rabbits are never that tall!!
I have a cat who is indoor-outdoor since adopted from the wild and he is a ferocious hunter. NO mice, voles, rabbits (or squirrels either) in our yard. Plus I have 3 rough collies ("Lassie dogs"). I brush them and leave their fur in clumps in the gardens weighted down by large pebbles. All this seems to deter the bunnies.
I always kept the rabbits out of my garden by doing a row or two around the garden with Marigolds. They don't like the smell an won't eat them. Keeps them from going further into the garden to munch on vegetables.
The rabbits ate ALL of my marigolds last year. They like the New young plants. If you can protect the plants until they get a lot bigger, they don't seem to bother them then.
Giant Hyssop as far as the eye can see! My “go-to” for convincing rabbits and deer to do their shopping elsewhere.
And they are GORGEOUS, smell amazing to humans, self-propagate via prolific seeds (while not being invasive), and the leaves make a nice licorice-scented tea.
The common names of the species are a variety of "hyssops" and "mints"; as a whole the genus is known as giant hyssops or hummingbird mints.
We have returning rabbits each year that dig under the brick wall into our crawl space. They have nibbled on the wood beams, and drive our house dogs crazy with their scent. We filled the burrow holes with quickcrete after they left for the season, but they dug next to it the following year. This year we will be cutting down 30+ year old peony bushes and other shrubs next to our home in order to install chicken wire both horizontally and vertically in our flower beds. I really hope this helps.
