I wonder if there's a way to infuse dormant oil spray with hot pepper.......

:-)

~Christopher

I can sympathize. The rabbits congregate near my house where the snow has blown away and do the kind of damage you show. They don't seem to do much damage to the hundreds of roses that are not near the house that tend to have snow cover. I finally started caging the ones near the house.

I have seen rabbits eat a mature rose all the way to the ground in a day. It's unbelievable, but when they're hungry, they can do astonishing damage.

My best recommendation would be to cage them . . . Cage the ROSES . . . not the wabbits.

From the hardware store, get some uprights -- maybe those green plastic poles? Get some sturdy chicken wire. Something pretty stiff and strong. Put the poles all around the roses, and use the chicken wire to make a "fence" or "cage."

I recommend that you make hooks out of heavy grade wire to stake the chickenwire to the ground. (They're smart. If they can't go over, they'll go under.)

We saw this done at the Lynchburg City Cemetery, and remembered it when we were protecting the roses at a local historic site. It's not remarkably handsome, but it will keep the roses safe until the wabbits find another food source.

Thank you all so much for your advice. The ground is frozen right now so I can't put any stakes but will definitely do what Jeri and belmont advised and cage them in the future. As an emergency (hopeful) fix, I'll try to make a pepper spray that Christopher suggested (don't have dormant oil right now, but do have some other oils like neem...) and hope that will save whatever is left while I'm away. This is heart-braking...

I'm thinking that if you steep the hottest parts of the hottest peppers you can find in hot water, let that cool, add some kind of mild soap, and mix that with the oil, you might get something that "sticks" and works as a deterrent. I've never tried it -- just brainstorming.

:-)

~Christopher

Unfortunately this is a problem where apex predators like coyotes, wolves and mountain lions have been eradicated. It affects the whole ecosystem in a negative way. I'm not saying they should be downtown, but there are many areas where they could thrive and keep down gophers, rabbits, squirrel and deer. When they introduced wolves to Yellowstone it had an incredibly positive effect on the environment, in ways that you wouldn't even think of. So sorry about your problem, it has to be really upsetting,

First, I'd like to say, "Arrrrgh!"

As others have noted, cages are super effective. I'm going to save Jeri's great step by step instructions so I can refer to them for my own purposes and for passing along tips to friends and neighbors.

I don't know if the following quick install (but not totally inexpensive) project would also work with rabbits, but perhaps those in the know could offer an opinion? I've purchased "decorative" steel fencing from Lowe's and Home Depot in order to wall off long stretches of garden invaded by dogs. The kind I like incorporates a criss crossed grid so that tiny creatures like chihuahuas can't slip through. The panels can be installed and removed seasonally or as needs arise. They connect together but I use heavy duty locking black plastic tree ties to make certain the job is done right. The panels stake into the ground. They even kept my 50 lb. collie puppy out of my precious rose beds!

To answer your question about the nibbled roses, I'd say there's a very good chance that Ispahan and RdV will return from the ashes, especially if they're own root. A few years ago, my 1 gallon baby own-root Botzaris was devoured down to the potting soil by squirrels....3 times! It bounced back like a true Damask. There's a photo of its unfurling bloom on another thread. Your Ispahan and RdV may not flower this year since the "hard pruning" may have been a little too severe for the timing, but they should kick back into flowering next year just fine. And who knows? Maybe RdV will offer a mid summer bit of purple just to prove my prediction incorrect.

Carol

I have coyotes, bobcats, fishers and some say mountain lions. They surely have been helping to keep the rabbits in check. I always cheer them on.

Ha! Coyotes have recently established themselves in my neighborhood (which is right next to Downtown). Several cats have gone missing around the same time as when people started seeing coyotes. A lady I know saw an adult playing with pups alongside the road last summer.

Cat lovers are very upset, but I just tell them that they should keep their cats indoors - the roads are way too dangerous because of cars, anyway. Now I have something to tell them - that coyotes will keep the rabbits from eating their gardens! Do they hunt gofers too?

Jackie

Well, I did what I could. To make things worse, I found that all kinds of gardening oil are completely frozen in our basement so I grabbed my kitchen canola oil, mixed it with water, poured loads of cayenne pepper and black pepper. Then, when my sprayer suddenly didn't work, I just unscrewed the top and literally poured it all over the canes, or whatever was left of them.

I also found some chicken wire leftover from what I used to cover the bulbs when I planted them. Carol's fence gave me an idea to use a few of my reserve lawn fences, though they are only 2 feet tall, and then quickly made a temporary protection by tying chicken wire & lawn fences to the yard fence, wrapping around the roses. In the process, I discovered that only 2 canes of my Peggy Martin are left, Mme Hardy is reduced to a 1 foot cane, and the Fairy is gone, hopefully something is left under the snow.

Next year, I'll do some serious caging and, like Carol, I've already bookmarked Jeri's instructions. No coyotes here... I already lost the battle with squirrels and gave up growing heirloom tomatoes, but there is not a chance that I will surrender my beloved roses to rabbits, squirrels or any other animals!

Thank you all so much!! Here is the pic of what I did this afternoon with some roses. I had only a little chicken wire left and used it for a few other roses too.

We live in one of those places where flyers advertising missing cats are part of life. As are the coyotes who are eating them. :-(

Consequently, rabbits are pretty uncommon (though some live up the hill, inside a huge swath of prostrate juniper).

But I was really shocked when I was putting in some volunteer time at a lovely old Queen Anne home here ... surrounding land was being developed, and suddenly, we had an influx of rabbits. In a way, it was handy, because they devoured some garden plants that really needed to grow. But when we brought in "period-appropriate" roses, you better believe we caged them.

We've had rabbits here for a long time. I don't ever see them eating mature roses, just the newest ones. I make cages out of sticks stuck in the ground in a circle around a young rose. It seems to work. My cats have killed rabbits from time to time. A friend with a big rose garden puts out lettuce for a gigantic rabbit he had at his house. If they had enough easy food to eat, maybe they'd leave your roses alone but it might encourage them to consider your place home. The bad tasting oil spray sounds like a good idea. There is a spray for dogs at Walmart with bitter cherry in it. It is for discouraging dogs from chewing on things. It sort of works, and might work on a plant but I do think the dormant oil spray might stay stuck on the plant better. Cages of course work but seem like a lot of work to me. Sticks are a bother too and I skipped them this year. Maybe I'll put out some lettuce or vegetable scraps.

I also find that the rabbits go more for one and two year old plants. But they sometimes eat the bark on woody stems. I've never lost a rose to that but I still cage their favorite targets.

Totally agree that cats should be indoors for their own (and bird) safety.

I wonder if making a paste of ground hot chili pepper and petroleum jelly might work if it was smeared onto the rose canes at the bottom 24" or so.........

:-)

~Christopher

All brilliant ideas and they all should work well.

I used bitter apple before on my ferrets to train them not to bite when I was single just in case my friends come over with kids and they were not bitten . I spray on hands played rough with them then hands are good and applied vitamins so licking is good. It works beautifully. My ferrets got into everything but not wires or biting.

Accidentally, I tasted it and it is YIKES, nasty bitter taste. It is well known for cats also.

I love Jeri' s , Chris's, Carol 's, Eramus idea a lot.

Vesfl, you did a great job. That was pretty fast you took care of it and it looks pretty too like Carol's :) very nice design.

Well, enjoy your flight to wherever and hope rabbits will go elsewhere.

Jin

Thank you, Christopher. That's a great idea. Will do it when I get back from the trip (it's already dark and I'm leaving tomorrow @ 6 am). Hope these chicken wires I put today will keep them away until then.

We have a few stray cats in the neighborhood who regularly visit our yards, but I haven't seen them recently. It must be this freezing weather keeps them away, hopefully somewhere warmer.

Thank you, Jin. The snow is about 3-4 feet deep and I tried my best. Wouldn't be able to do it without awesome advice from wonderful gardening friends, all of you, on this forum. I can't thank you enough for giving all your advice and experience so quickly because I am pressed for time.

I'm just a little worried about what that ground hot chili pepper might do to already-damaged canes.

I did do something similar once, long, long ago. I caught a young dog starting to chew on the corner of my coffee table. Before he could do much real damage, I smeared the area with paste furniture wax, mixed with ground hot chili pepper.

He never touched it again.

I’m sorry you are having such trouble! After extensive damage my first winter in my current home, I too have taken to using barriers against rabbit damage. My technique is a bit different then others. I inherited a bolt of landscape fabric with the house (which I ordinarily detest). I have small children, and wanted to come up with an option that would not expose my girls to lots of cold, pokey wires when they play outside in the winter.

Here is what I do:

Each of those black lumps are young roses which have been wrapped in landscape fabric. In the autumn I hill the roses with leaf mulch, then wrap them up in the landscape fabric. I tie the fabric around the rose, and peg it into the ground before it freezes. I’ll pull everything off and open things up as the weather begins to warm in the spring. Since the fabric is air and water permeable, I haven’t run into the dessication or fungal issues that I did when I tried rose cones. The fabric stumps the rabbits, and they move on to more edible looking options.

Here is my one and only bourbon, Madame Issac Perriere, all snuggled up for winter. I’m hoping by including the leaf mulch around her canes, inside the wrapping, I may have better luck getting some cane to live through the winter this year. It’s a good test year, we’ve had some brutal temps so far! You can see my baby Leda next to it on the right. It’s much smaller right now so I wrapped the whole rose, not just the bottom, to keep it from bunny teeth. Meanwhile my hardy, established, Henri Martin to the left will stay unwrapped.

Jeri, capsaicin -- the thing that makes hot peppers "hot" -- gives its effect only to mammals, and perhaps also some fungi. It wouldn't be an irritant to other plants the way it is to us.

It also has no effect on birds -- I used to show people that by giving Sammy a Habanero to eat. As such, if you're having trouble with squirrels raiding your bird feeders, you can mix cayenne pepper or chili pepper flakes with the seed in the feeders. Your cardinals will be the reddest in the neighborhood.

Pepper plants stumbled upon producing this chemical, and its advantage was selected by evolution. Mammals typically eat pepper fruits and chew them, destroying seeds within. Most birds, however, swallowed them whole, and seeds passed through them unharmed and far from the parent plants. Parrots are exceptions -- they chew seeds, but lacking the mammalian receptor to which capsaicin binds and sends a signal of painful heat to the brain, they eat hot peppers with abandon.

:-)

~Christopher

vesfl, I don't have any useful suggestions; just wanted to say I'm sorry the bunnies ate your roses, and I hope you can come up with a good deterrence. Maybe tape recipes for rabbit stew on nearby available surfaces. The "message" might get through regardless of rabbit literacy...

Enjoy your trip!

Virginia

I'm hoping for increasing activity from the (much feared and hated) putative local wolf population, though in our case the damage mostly comes from roe deer, not rabbits. Actually I don't think we have rabbits: I've never seen one. We do have hares, and I hope they don't eat the roses, because I like them: I see one once in a while in the garden. There have always been hares but we never had damage until the deer moved into our area.

The small cottontails we have here are so cute - in someone else’s yard! In ours they have eaten not only roses but “rabbit proof” plants.

Since I dislike the look of chicken wire we used hardware cloth. If you cut a piece and bend it around it is rigid and doesn’t need anything to hold it upright. We just use landscape stakes to fix it to the ground and spray paint it brown to blend into the background better.

Our roses are in a long bed with wire around the whole thing but this is what we do for individual plants. I hope as everything matures we can lose the wire but in the meantime this works.

Maria

I have some reluctance to put a rabbit through the pain of eating hot pepper. They might not have any water to drink to wash away the pepper. They might have to find something to eat to wash it away and it could b e hard to find something in winter. It might teach them a lesson, I don't know. Or they might keep trying, being very hungry.

This kind of argument could be applied to termites I guess. I do believe in drawing a line, and treating a pest as a pest. But it seems cruel for a little bunny to find that what gives him life gives him pain, if he bites into some pepper. I think a barrier is a little kinder way to do it. I use the bitter spray to deter my dogs indoors but they have access to water.

I have used IVORY bar soap grated into large chunks to deter the rabbits for the past 5 years. It works every time. Even in years when I forget and start late, after they have been browsing. I just sprinkle it heavily around the rose. It just needs to be replaced after it melts. It has never hurt the roses. Cheap and effective for me.

Rebecca

Use fencing. Fence the whole planting area instead of each bush.

Erasmus, I have never thought about that. Yup, you are right. I don't have rabbits here at all. So, looking at Karen's s idea seems better to me. I don't like chicken wires but just for winter, I might go for that if I did not see Karen's. That would be my choice to protect roses and wild life.

Chilies idea was also given to me by gardeners by Home Depot Bec my dog keep going to plants to pee. I can't do that either, I heard what it does to dogs but I always yelling from my window and he learns. Take a long time and he killed my all Miss American rose bush (2) , ebb and other flowering plants. It could be me also. But regardless, They all went to sky.

But I still love all the ideas . It is what works best for you. Good luck !

Jin

Sympathies, vesfl - I had rabbits take down a 4 year old apple tree by gnawing through the trunk a year or two ago, and it was hardly a thin cane at that point. When they get hungry they can be devastating.

One idea that might supplement the caging you've done is to set filled leaf bags around the susceptible roses. If they can't get to the roses, presumably they can't chew them. I think that's how I've kept rabbit damage to a minimum, by laying filled leaf bags at the edges of all my beds and stood upright around the most tender roses. The roundness and height of the bags seems to discourage them from jumping over them even though they obviously could do so with those huge legs. You could look a bungee cord around the outside of roses to make sure they don't shift and allow the bunnies in. This has the added advantage of being removable in spring and used for mulch, if you don't want permanent fences up (or in addition to the permanent fences).

I know most people have finished raking in your climate, but I always find a few leaf bags at the curb in almost any weather from someone or another doing leaf cleanup. An alternative might be to stack frozen bags of actual mulch that you buy around the rose to make a mini fort, but I'm too cheap to spend rose money on mulch.

Regardless, I think your roses will survive fine and you'll have a plan in place this summer to counteract next winter's devastation. Rose growing is all about living and learning!

Cynthia

My adopted cat was indoor/outdoor in his previous home but is strictly indoors here. Fortunately we have French doors and windows everywhere for him to look out which we can also open since there is still a locked screen protecting him. I don't believe in keeping dogs outside either except when they're being walked. I know there are country people who just accept the fact that some of their cats will be eaten but I'm not one of them. As some have mentioned, the bunnies here also eat only young rose leaves and canes, and I protect them with unsightly circles of thorny canes. We enjoy the bunnies and ground squirrels and feed them dog food (they won't touch rabbit food) and have water everywhere for the birds and any mammal that comes by. This works only because we have large predators in the area. Melissa, I hope the wolves in your area begin to learn how to take down deer, because those beautiful animals, where there are too many, do significant damage to the environment with their overgrazing.

Thank you, thank you, all! Well, one thing that gardening has taught me is how much it means to have a community of gardening friends. I was completely heart-broken yesterday but now much more hopeful and encouraged after reading all your advice and support.

Ugh, I have a lot of landscape cloth that we use to cover plants when frost hits in late spring and could have wrapped some yesterday, but didn't even think about it. I'll surely try it for the rest of the winter season because the ground is frozen and it's too late for caging now.

I will also try fencing the entire area but I'm still not sure how they get in from my neighbor's yard because the gaps between the wood fencing are very narrow though it's clear from the tracks that they get in from there. So I still need to cage each rose but will also fence the beds and borders for winter.

That's a great idea about leaves and I always have plenty. Just this year I gave away some 20-30 bags of leaves. Next time I'll keep them for protection. I'm thinking to perhaps fill in the caged area with some too...

I am always for the humane treatment of animals, pests included, and completely understand the concern about the discomfort that pepper can leave on bunnies, but I just can't let this happen again and there is so much snow around that just licking it can hopefully give them the relief from this temporary discomfort. It's really just to teach them that this is not an area for having yet another feasting banquet as they did two nights ago. I might alternate between chili pepper/petroleum jelly, following Christopher's recipe, and shredded Ivory soap that was also kindly recommended.

And as the final touch, I'll use the best deterrent of all (credits go to Virginia! :-)). On the cage or leaf bag next to each rose I'll stick different rabbit recipes, starting with Brunswick stew (though myself I've never had any and do adore bunnies, but not when they eat my roses).

Cages really are the best way, as others have said. Chicken wire works well and is cheap. More decorative barriers are more expensive, but if you only have a few roses they would be the way to go, especially if the rabbits are around all year.

If you have dogs, they will also keep dashing or digging dogs from damaging the plants.

In my experience, coyotes keep the rabbit pressure low, but they don't do much for gophers or ground squirrels.

The rabbits are capable of montsrous damage, true, but arguably even more horrifying are the little voles that devour the roots all winter.

So if those were once blooming roses like gallica, would there be any flowers this year or no way? Wondering if my purchase of ogr roses I intend to plant in the spring was a bad idea. Bunnies did a bunch of my roses in as well, luckily they all needed to be pruned anyway.

llailiall -- I think some old roses bloom on new wood, so some winter bunny pruning wouldn't hurt them -- necessarily. Some, however, you are absolutely not supposed to prune -- like R. eglanteria, a species. I am not sure about this, though. Perhaps, someone else has more experience. Roses are such a diverse group of plants.

Gallica only bloom on old wood.

Chris, Its true birds dont taste the heat of hot peppers. One year our 2 big fat female turkeys got into our fenced garden. One of the kids left the gate open. There was a large bush full of ripe orange Ghost Peppers. There must of been 35 or more on that bush. They ate every one of them! Then they ate a bush full of Purple Jalepenos for dessert. Didn't affect them whatsoever lol.

~Sjn