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Pest Type
Got rabbits? These small mammals can do a number on young plants, so prevention is paramount. Aside from fencing, there are a number of old-time remedies and other solutions that will keep them out of the garden patch! Plus, see a list of plants that rabbits tend toignore.
Why Would You Keep RabbitsAway?
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’tenjoy.
Rabbits also have an extremely high reproductive potential, which is why keeping them around might quickly cause a total garden infestation. They can produce up to three litters of six babies each, per year in the north, and up to six litters of three babies each, per year 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 eight days more than it takes a chicken egg tohatch!
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 therefore 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 insafety.
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 therest.
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Identification
How to Identify Rabbits in yourGarden
Of the nine species of North American cottontail rabbits, it’s the eastern cottontail (Sylvilagusfloridanus) 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 fencerows, field edges, brush piles, and—you guessed it—landscaped backyards. Its fondness for flowers, vegetables, bark, and bulbs often results in pruned peppers and clippedcosmos.
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 cottontailcan 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 in length, 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, taperedears.
For an eastern cottontail, security is a pile of brush, leaves, or another animal’s abandoned burrow. Unlike their European cousins, these rabbits do not dig intricate burrows or warrens but make due with what they find. Rabbits rarely leave their shelters in broad daylight, preferring instead early morning or evening. 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 springdining.
RabbitDamage
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 otherplants.
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 rabbitdamage.
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 thebunnies—their little paw prints wereeverywhere.”
Cute, yes. But behind those eyes lies an eternalhunger!
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