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Rabbit
Honeyheart
Posts: 40
just I finish planting dozens of new plants in a large garden a line rabbit appears. It's bold but does hop slowly away if I chase it. I have tried garlic and chilli spray on plants and fences but it doesn't seem too bothered. the garden backs onto farmland and it's not possible to fence off my garden from the fields. Any ideas on how to dispatch it? My husband says pest control won't bother with just one rabbit if I don't know where the burrow is. Any ideas, suggestions etc? Thank you.
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My suggestion would be to try and understand that the rabbit belongs there as much as you do, unfortunately creatures don't know about barriers and where they shouldn't go.
I also live on the edge of a field, we have foxes ,badgers, pheasants rabbits, they just won't understand that I don't want them in the garden.
You either need barriers round your plants, or plants that rabbits don't like or a dog or a hunter/gamekeeper. Rabbits never come in groups of 1.
You can make a physical barrier with chicken wire fencing, buried to about 12 or 18 inches. There is no point trying to catch or kill it, what ever your moral stance, because it has hundreds of relatives waiting to follow on. I had a growing problem with rabbits until I adopted two young moggies. They didn't catch the rabbits - they were only babies - but the rabbits made a strategic withdrawal, just in case, and haven't returned in 5 years. I don't even see them in the field next to us.
I think some years you get more rabbits, then none, since they ate plants in my garden, a few years ago now, I hadn't seen any in the fields or the roads, but they are making a comeback this year, seen lots around.
There's a list of rabbit proof plants on the net. Other than that, as Obi says, a dog or a gun.
As suggested chicken wire. There is no need for drastic steps!
Thanks for suggestions, it is hard to describe but it isn't possible to fence or sink chicken wire.
So do you have no barrier ... hedge/fence/wall at your garden boundary?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
If you can't fence your boundary then would it be possible to put fences around individual areas (e.g. if you grow vegetables then around your vegetable plot)? I have circles of weld mesh around some individual plants to protect them against rabbits and you can also buy some quite pretty rabbit cloches but they are horrendously expensive!
It's really hard to describe but there is no way to fence the boundary, not only because there is over an acre of land but there are sections where our boundary is a wood (rather than a hedge). I don't want to fence individual borders or plants as I think it would be quite unsightly, I was hoping someone might have a recipe for a spray which they have found works or experience of deterrents which are available to buy etc. Fencing isn't really an option because of where I live, the layout of the land, the potential cost etc.
The best advice I can offer (having a fairly large population of bunnies despite also having two lurchers), is to grow plants they don't like to eat and keep an area of grass cut short close to where they are coming in to the garden. They generally will eat the nice tender grass shoots in preference to older tougher plants. But you may have to be philosophical about the fact you just can't have some plants (annuals are generally a waste of money, for example) and having to grow some in tallish pots (any unfenced veg, especially lettuce).
I agree with Lyn that if you are not able (or willing) to fence them out, you have to consider them a part of the environment in which you garden and adapt, just like you do for whether your garden is sunny or shady. Right plant right place in my garden is as much about the wildlife that lives here as about the cold northwesterly wind and the acidic clay soil. They don't eat EVERYTHING. Most things, but unless you have a population explosion, normally some plants will be left alone.
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