I could cry..

Blimey Harry, you could make several pies out of that one!

 

Lorna, you have my sympathy, and I feel your pain.

I bought a chunk of land a few years ago with grand ambitions of growing all sorts of native flowers and trees there, along with some fruit and herbs.

I couldn't afford to put rabbit proof fencing all the way around it, and it would be impractical anyway due to the shape of the place.

Everything I planted would get very quickly destroyed by the furry demons.

I persevered, planting more stuff and trying different ways to protect it, all to no avail.

I nearly threw in the towel after I'd spent a full day one winter planting 200 native saplings, only to go back a week later to find every single one had been chewed, mostly all the way through.

But here's the twist. When spring time came, I noticed that some of the trees I'd planted were coming back. The tops had been largely destroyed but the roots had held on and re-sprouted.

I put tree protectors on (which I should have done in the first place) and I reckon I've saved about 80% of them.

I did lots of research into the subject, and did some experiments of my own. The Foxgloves and the Daffodils have been completed left alone, as have the primroses that grow wild there.

It looks like the rabbits won't even go into a clump of foxgloves if they don't have to, so I'm experimenting with foxglove boundaries around more vulnerable plants.

In a chance discovery, brought on by my laziness, I've raised a few wild flowers successfully. I'd been cutting down gorse, and had left piles of clippings here and there with the intention of clearing it up later, but hadn't got round to doing so. The result, little mounds of all sorts of lush growth, surrounding by completely blitzed rabbit grazed areas.

I've still got a long way to go before I get it how I want it, but its getting there, and gradually I'm finding new ways to stop the rabbits destroying everything.

The moral of the story is this. Don't let it grind you down. Try a number of different ways of protecting your plants from the furry demons. Plants that are toxic to them (eg daffs, foxglove) as barriers, prickly areas (eg gorse clippings), plastic protectors on young trees and shrubs, and small enclosures of rabbit proof fencing for anything really vulnerable.

 

Sorry to hear this Lorna. At my last house I had problems with rabbits. I got up one morning to find my beautiful petunias completely gone, they chewed them right down to soil level, perishers! I do know they don't like lupins, if that's any help. Also Clueless is right about foxgloves and daffodils. They've poisoned my dog in the past.

 

Thank you all once again. I've recovered my equilibrium now, and, quite coincidentally, we've got the excellent rabbiting dogs staying with us for a couple of days (ours - a Bernese mountain dog - means well but speedy she is not) so I'm sure the deterrent effect will last for a few days. I have learned a few hard lessons over the years I've been attempting to garden here - such as that rabbits will even strip the leaves of young holly trees so I always use tree guards now, and that they won't touch foxgloves, lupins, cowslips, or courgettes, crocosmia and paeonies - but I think what got to me was that many of the plants destroyed have actually been growing in the garden, but in a different place, for a couple of years without the rabbits touching them, although the old area was just as accessible to rabbits as the new. And I have a great pang about my lovely phloxes, which are dear to my heart. Funny, they haven't touched my Mount Fuji white phlox or Strawberry Daiquiri, and I know from other people that they will completely destroy some roses and leave others alone. Ah well. Will order the fencing and soldier on! Thank you all again for your kindness and encouragement.

 

And Harry - even the Bernese could catch that one!

 

Excellent. More plants to add to the list of 'safe' plants

I've noticed a similar phenomenon on my land, although in my case not to a significant level. I wonder if we have a clue there. Maybe the 'safe' area is somewhere that rabbits have a reason to feel threatened or vulnerable, so they avoid it. They completely ignore the first half of my top field, which is quite close to the road and the bit we always walk on the most (obviously because that's where the gate is), so maybe it is something to do with noise or the scent of people? (rabbits have a very sensitive sense of smell).

Rabbits also are to some extent creatures of habit. They graze paths (runs? tracks? I'm sure there is a proper word for it) and use those routes they make for most of their wanderings. That means planting something near those paths is a recipe for trouble.

I don't have the definitive answer, but I think between us we might be able to figure out how to beat the furry demons.

 

I have got a destructive squirrel who digs in the garden and in my pots when he has run out of peanuts and fat balls. Talk about blackmail - keep the peauts coming or else!!

 

There's been more good advice here than in any gardening book, with the exception of the excellent 'Garden Plants for Scotland' which gives a list of rabbit resistant plants. (And no, I don't live in Scotland but as we can see Scotland just across the Solway from our windows, and share many of the same problems, the book is great for us!)
I'll think about the rabbit pathways idea, though before the new flowerbed was made (the one which has been pulverised) I had never seen rabbits in that particular place, and the dogs had never taken an interest in it, whereas there are other bits of the garden they spend ages in looking for the aforesaid furry demons.
In the meantime, I'm sure most of the plants will regenerate!