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Animal digging in new bed

guttiesgutties Posts: 224
in Problem solving
I've dug a new bed and over the last few days I had noticed some animal digging activity.  I assume it's a rabbit (but haven't seen any pills).
I planted out the bed yesterday and put mesh all around the bed last night.
I came out this morning to see that there has been digging last night once again.  The digging is always in the exact same spot (just to the side of a rose).

In this first pic you can see where the animal dug below the mesh (I hadn't sunk it as it's only intended to be temporary):

This next pic shows the digging that was done last night (just between the rose and a verbascum):
I assume this is likely to be a rabbit as there would be plenty about, but it could be something else I guess.
I would be almost 100% certain that there is nothing there for the animal as this is a hard clay area and so it's not as if it was a rabbit nesting area or anything like that.  I added in spent mushroom compost to try to improve the clay a little.

Any thoughts on how I deter the animal from continuing to dig there?

As it's digging the same spot would blocking that off somehow (by maybe sinking the wire mesh for a few days) deter the animal so it would forget about that spot and find somewhere else?

Are there any smells that would deter the (presumed) rabbit?

Posts

  • treehugger80treehugger80 Posts: 1,923
    did you use any fish,blood and bone when fertilising the new bed? as it might be foxes
  • BrexiteerBrexiteer Posts: 955
    Looks very small to be dug by a rabbit unless it's a young one. Are any plants nibbled as that what rabbits do. The holes in my borders were done by squirrels burying things 
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    I get shallow scrapes like that in loose soil which I think may be pheasants, though I'm not at all sure what they're doing.

    On your last question - I've never found anything to deter rabbits other than a fence.
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • guttiesgutties Posts: 224
    I didn't use Fish, blood & bone in the soil as I do have foxes in the locality.  Nothing nibbled from what I can see, it seems that the entire aim was to burrow.
  • BrexiteerBrexiteer Posts: 955
    You won't ever stop wildlife doing what wildlife wants to do I'm afraid. A friend of mine woke one morning to find deer eating his grapevines after having both for many years without incident. He built a fence to deter them but the next morning they were there again as they went through a neighbours garden into his. His grapevines were taken down that year then after that he hardly ever saw the deer again. 3 years later he rebuilt his vines and the deer were back
  • guttiesgutties Posts: 224
    So I left the hole intact yesterday to see what would happen last night.  I came out to this this morning:
    I presume it's a doe digging as there are no pills visible.  I'm going to have to sink a better fence to try to keep her out before she has her babies (I'm assuming that is what is happening here).

    Frustrating to have spent so many hours digging and then improving the soil and then this happens (when there are so many parts to the garden that I haven't improved). C'est la vie.
  • guttiesgutties Posts: 224
    We buried a wire mesh fence yesterday evening, thankfully the bed was fairly small as we had just 20m of mesh.
    I came out this morning and seen that digging had been attempted, but the rabbit wasn't able to get through.

    Fingers crossed that's the end of rabbits in my new herbaceous bed.
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