havahart traps ... its them or your garden ...

if it were a maurader .. maybe the cures might deter one odd wabbit .. but if a family is living, basially in your garden.. i dont think you will win ...

i know it will break your heart.. but you have to get rid of them ... ken

You are going to think I am crazy, but I got rid of both rabbits and squirrels by spreading human hair along the rows. This was with the help of my friendly barber, of course. Unfortunately, I got a lot of teasing from my neighbor, when he asked what I was doing. He didn't laugh too long, though, when he saw it worked. LOL!!
Bill

If their burrow is right on your property, pour human urine at the entrance. They'll move...

Here is a link that might be useful: Getting rid of burrowers

My yard is only 3 years old and I'm adding new flowers every summer. I've noticed the rabbits will eat some plants like my black-eyed susans---which I've had to move to my deck---but will leave other flowers I've planted alone. My question is: does anyone know where I can find a list of perennials that rabbits won't eat so that I'm not spending a lot of money on trial and error? I love the rabbits and don't want to harm them. I want to learn to co-exist with them.

I googled rabbit resistant plants and came up with the list below. But, I recently posted about something eating my asters, it was rabbits. And asters is listed on on the following link. So take it with a grain of salt, but it will give you some ideas.

Here is a link that might be useful: rabbit resistant plants

Two suggestions:

(1) i'm not familiar with the size of your garden...but what is most recommended and most effective (if you can stomach the sight of it and your garden is relatively small) is some chickenwire. You'll need a staple gun and some 18 inch high wooden posts (or sturdy sticks).

To make it extra secure, you'll need to make a low-lying perimeter out of wooden boards (whether you want to go the extra step and dig them 3 feet down to prevent burrowing is up to you).

(2) If your garden is too big, or you otherwise don't want to go the chickenwire approach, you might want to consider planting a smaller "second" garden further away from your house, concentrating on lettuces and legumes. Add to that a few simple brush piles, if you can, and you'll make a nice habitat for them away from your home.

In a similar vein of the above post: Do you have lawn weeds?
I was in a tizzy about the rabbits in my new (to me) neighborhood and how that would affect my gardens. I often saw them on my backlawn in the morning. They were eating clover and dandelions.

So far, I've seen no chewing damage in my gardens, which feature lots of new plants that rabbits would surely like. I am not 100% sure if they are preferring the clover or just moved out for some reason, but giving them something else to chew on might be an idea. I don't use chemicals for weeds and use Corn Gluten Meal to keep the crabgrass at bay. I don't mind the clover and other minor weeds. And it would seem that the rabbits like it, too.

Someone suggested Milorganite - which is recovered human waste! I have a bag of manure so with the milorganite idea in mind I will experiment with a border of manure around my kitchen herb garden - under constant attack by rabbits, my "resident" rabbit couple from last year has bred and there are now two baby rabbits as well. I will report back!

PS. I heard a nasty story of a woman, whose flowers were being eaten, who shot baby rabbits with a paintball gun and then (after the babies were stunned) popped them into a plastic bag and put them in the garbage......what sort of person would do that do you think?

Using moth balls as a deterent outside is a violation of federal law, this is printed on the package, and since the active ingrediant on moth balls is a class one carcinogen you should not use it in any manner where people may be exposed to the fumes.
The single best, most effective, and least expensive means of keeping rabbits, deer, woodchucks (aka groundhogs) or other of the larger mammals is a good, tight fence. Everything else involves reapplying the product, usually very expensive, often.

On the moth ball suggestion, I would echo kimmsr's points but also say that we tried it a few years back (was unaware of the federal regulation - may not have even existed then, as it was suggested by many homeowners and staff at Lowe's, and it was something that a landscape company I worked for in high school did for certain customers), AND it didn't work for us at all.

The fence will work, but where it looks awful (as it would around all of our ornamentals), the Liquid Fence once a month isn't that labor-intensive or expensive (we find that one $10 or so bottle lasts about 1/2 to 3/4 of the summer).

It is not the most savory option but human urine is a good deterrant. I have found you do not have to put on the plants but sprinkle in a perimeter around the plants. If the males in your house have good aim and you live in a seculed area, send them out at night! :) The downside is repeated application which, as the gentleman noted above, is going to be the downside with anything but a fence.

I have heard the human hair option works but have never tried it myself. My father in law puts aluminum pie pans on a pole to act as an inexpensive noise maker--they make a lot of noise when they rattle together but if there is no wind, or your garden is outside the bedroom window, this may not work.

You may need to try a combo of methods--that's what I did (urine around plants, pepper spray on plants, noise makers and I trellised as many plants as I possibly could) and I think I have finally gotten rid of my critters!

Thank you all for yours suggestions and particularly to anitamo for posting the link to the website of rabbit resistant plants. I plan to make good use of that as I work on expanding our garden over the next few years.

I moved the perennials that the rabbits were eating to raised containers and now the plants are finally thriving.

I just checked the site - what rabbits don't like. That's a long list! Is there a site that tells what is most vulnerable to rabbits? i.e. what to avoid planting?

This sounds gross, but it will work. If you have a dog allow it to mark the boundary of your garden with their urine--the entire boundary. This will "mark" the garden as enemy territory and the rabbits will avoid it. You'll need to do this frequently however.

For get the 'marking' of the garden, just the presence of the dog in the yard will cause the varmints to find another location( with time).

I'm not sure that allowing your dog to run wild thru your garden is such a good idea if you want a clean, healthy garden.