Keeping rabbits out of gardens can be carried out with natural and humane methods. Some can be more effective than others, depending on the situation you’re encountering with these cute yet possibly destructive pests!
After all, you didn’t get your garden all set up only to see some rabbits hopping around, nibbling on your plants, did you?
Sign of Rabbits Eating Your Plants
It’s pretty easy to spy on rabbits in the garden during daylight hours.
If you want to make further investigation, here are the signs that indicate rabbits or any equally annoying pests are munching plants in your garden.
- Check near-ground level trees: Since rabbits are relatively short (and cute) animals, they prefer to munch on shorter plants as well.
- Check young, tender plants and bushes: Rabbits love munching on twigs, young bushes of pansies or broccolis. These little puffs have sharp front teeth, so you’re likely to find clean-cut damage, unlike the jagged, messy holes caused by insects.
- Look for small droppings: One reliable sign to detect the appearance of rabbits in your garden is their scat (poop). You should find areas with coarse, round fecal pellets; those are rabbit droppings.
After you have spotted rabbits on your lawn, keep reading the next section to find ways of keeping rabbits out of gardens.
In this video, you are shown how to prevent rabbits from entering your garden again:
How to Get Rid of Rabbits in Your Garden
Build Physical Barriers
A picket fence won’t be enough to keep these puffs away from your garden. So, how to keep rabbits away from eating flowers?
It’s recommended to use chicken wires and 1-inch mesh to self-create a fence around your garden. One more thing, rabbits are some of nature’s best diggers, so be sure to push the fence 4 – 6 inches deep into the ground.
Eliminate Food Sources
Like rats, rabbits are attracted to smells.
Keep your trash tied up in a bag or a sealed bin and secure the lid every time you bring your trash out. Getting rid of all the food sources is not entirely practical; you can make them harder to reach, though.
Protect Individual Plant
Take even a step further than just building fences around your garden by putting up plant cages for specific individuals, especially the smaller ones.
In winter times, it’s best to use expandable trunk protectors to keep your tree trunks safe, including larger woody shrubs and trees.
Use Rabbit Repellents
Try spraying your vegetable gardens with scents that rabbits don’t like, including the smell of approaching wild predators (their urine, blood meals, or bone meals).
Such strong smells can deter rabbits as they would avoid putting themselves in potentially life-threatening situations.
Either purchase a repellent spray bottle from any local garden stores near you or make one yourself. However, bear in mind that some cannot be sprayed directly on the plants, particularly food plants, but around them.
Do apply the repellent often, including after every rainfall.
It is worth mentioning that rabbits may get used to certain smells overtime after acknowledging it’s not a threat. Changing up the scent every once in a while is a must to keep rabbits out of gardens.
Add Visual Rabbit Deterrent
Rumor has it that placing a rabbit deterrent garden in your yard works wonders to scare off rabbits. Some swear by their success, while there are vehement reactions against it from some quarters.
The only way to find out whether these works is to try it out yourself.
Opt for rubber snakes, owl statues, or even metal pinwheels. Do move them around often, so the rabbits don’t get accustomed to encountering them in the same spots.
Ask Your Best Pal to Help
Rabbits are known to be fearful of dogs.
Thus, your dog may even be the first to spot rabbits in your garden due to his keen sense of smell. Don’t be too surprised to see him running on the lawn, chasing a rabbit around.
However, dogs can quickly kill rabbits, so if you want to shoo them away in the most humane way, we don’t recommend this method.
Tips to Prevent Rabbits
How to deter rabbits? It is an ongoing battle to prevent rabbits from entering your garden, but there are still solutions to this!
Despite how many times you have succeeded in stopping them from your garden, you still need to keep your guards up always.
- Keep your fences on,
- Inspect for signs of rabbits weekly,
- Check up on your plants often,
- Take action as soon as you spot the first signs of rabbits.
You’d want to start early in the springtime, which is the beginning of their growing season. Then, be consistent throughout the entire season using what they don’t like.
- Spread dried blood or human hair around your garden as early in the season as possible. Repeat if there’s rain.
- Repellents are great for defecting rabbits but don’t just depend on them.
A fence of four feet high and chicken wire wrapping suffice to keep the pesky rabbits from entering your garden; do bury it six-inch deep to the ground to ensure they stand firm.
- Making your garden less appealing is a good way to keep rabbits away. It means you should reduce their ideal nesting options like low-lying shrubs or dense vegetation.
Rabbits don’t often leave their shelters, so hopefully, getting rid of their sweet homes will restrain them. Sweep away the brush piles and leaves; also, fill in abandoned burrows.
- Legend has it that rabbits are afraid of their reflection. The truth behind this is rabbits think what they’re seeing is the image of another predator rabbit.
By employing mirrors around your yard, you can easily prevent the rabbit populations in your garden from increasing.
In Conclusion
Rabbits may be cute to look at, but they can also be a nuisance once they start eating up your garden. By following the mentioned methods, keeping rabbits out of gardens has never been any easier.
Thank you for reading!
