Enjoy eating rabbit (solution). Yes, the peony will probably push secondary buds this year, but you may well have lost all buds for this years display. Obviously, yes, it costs the peony extra energy and repeated will cause death.

Rats (normal rodents, bunny rats, hooved rats) usually don't read the 'X doesn't eat these' tags and taste everything. I've seen plants devastated where the rabbit (assumption) simply pruned off every leaf and made a nice pile, eating none. There really isn't any recourse other than cages or pest extermination programs. Or move to a country that doesn't have these.

Leaf buds or flower buds? If leaf all leaf buds are lost then will it die due to lack of photosynthesis ? Yes this is why I hate rabbits more than deer

I meant flower, but obviously, you're losing leaves too. My rabbit fatality in late winter was a lovely Heucherella that had been in ground three years. The rabbit finished every bud off and chewed to ground. I'm waiting to see if it might push some buds out as spring comes or if it's lost.

Heruga, why don't you just cover all your plants with small cages. I know people who do it because of the deer. At least keep the cages on until the plants are big enough to fend for themselves. I have neighbors who let there cats outside and they keep the rabbit population under control around here. I rarely ever see any rabbits. Squirrells and chipmunks are another story because there are many oaks around. I'll have to look up your peony. If gardening teaches anything its how to have a lot of patience and to be adaptable and roll with it when unexpected tragedies happen! I really hope your peony makes it!

Well then I can only hope that my peony has an enough sized rootball in order to push out more stored energy it got from photosynthesis last year. Its been in the ground for 2.5 years and plants I bought were decent sized rhizomes so mayyybe I can raise my hopes up. Although it is under a canopy of all mature norway maple, red maple, elm, and oak. I don't know how it survived the past 2 seasons with that much competition but I'm guessing this peony is tougher than I thought.

I actually make a cylinder with my wire cages and put them over my plants and pin it down with landscape pins.. most of them but not all of them and of course the ones that I don't do gets eaten. But doing so for every single plant in your garden sounds a little unrealistic. Its a lot of labor, money(for cages and pins), and it'll look silly to other people looking at your garden isn't it? I have the luxury to do so now because I plant some perennials here and there because I'm not the owner of the house but once I get a house I will stuff my yard with crapton loads of perennials-no grass so I'm going to have to put a fence for each and every single plant? I don't think fencing off the entire property works for rabbits either. Might work for deer but I have a feeling rabbits will always find a way to sneak in.

I don't know, it sounds like you have an abnormally huge ammount of rabbits around your house. It might be unrealistic to cage every plant, but I'd think you'd want to cage your more precious specimens like those gorgeous Paeonia obovatas, japonicas??? Did you happen to watch that movie Donnie Darko? There's this giant demonic rabbit in it lol. Plant a carrot patch, maybe it will draw them away from your perennials. I had to cover my basement windowwells because bunnies kept jumping in them and dying of shock. Apparantly they are prone to panic attacks. How is your Artemisia princeps plant doing now?

We do and new bunnies every year. Despite having lots of cats around. God I hate rabbits so much. Pretty soon I might get traps for them. Or maybe I might set a sudden sound alarm so it'll give them a heart attack. I didn't see that movie but looks to be traumatic. I don't need anymore rabbits trauma in me lol. The artemisia is doing fine. It does spread like a maniac though. In its first year of planting it already spread roots a foot and a half away and new growth started coming out of it. Right now some new growth is popping up. I'll take pics tomorrow.

I did say demonic rabbit. Let's hope you never get voles lol! I recommend an Anemone tincture! I may have to just get a yomogi plant. If the seeds are coming from the other side of the planet it could take months.

When we moved into our house, I would sometimes see half a dozen rabbits at once, and once counted twelve! After they chewed through the cable of our electric pool cover, my husband waged an all-out war against them. I told him he was crazy, that with that many rabbits around, you could never have one rabbit-free yard. Now four years later we are virtually rabbit free. However, it was not easy. We repaired gaps in the fencing, spread fox urine granules, set many, many live traps, filled in burrows, got a cat, housed a dog for nine months, re-checked the fencing, bought a BB gun, set more traps, etc etc etc. Today we see rabbits very occasionally. Of course it could be that the rabbit population declined all around the neighborhood and we just *thought* it was our efforts, you never know!

Sorry to hear about your peony :-/

Always something, eh? I don't want to sound too glum but yep, gardening is often a guerilla war between humans and...everything else and, like most of us, you will eventually find some sort of compromise, including pre-emptive barrier protection (never had a great deal of faith in anything spray-on). Hostas, which every US gardener seems to grow in multiples, are a complete fail...and I don't even make an attempt. Your paeony, however, is worthy of protecting (and do it now). I will point out that no blooms were likely to be forthcoming this year anyway but yes, it will need it's foliage to continue to grow the roots for future seasons.

I had always been an urban gardener, with few encounters with rabid vegetarian munchers...but since acquiring woodland, I embarked on a steep (and painful) learning curve which completely changed my gardening philosophy. Obviously, looking at the lush and fulsome growth still covering every inch of soil, not everything manages to be eaten by predators so the art to gardening under siege depends on a willingness to explore strategies. Including accepting defeat when your patience and pocket-book demand a different approach to (the usual) sow, plant and hope routine...and for idle gardeners like myself, I am simply willing to live with the limited selection of undesirable (to animals) plants, and go to extreme protective lengths for my few treasures...although the many hundreds of plants I raised, lost and forgotten about reveals a long and sometimes bitter relationship between my hopes and aspirations and the reality of sharing a world.

Good news (for me at least), I'm seeing some buds emerging and swelling on my winter savaged heucherella!

O, I have no doubt that Heruga's paeony will resprout to fulsome growth...but paeonies are slow, requiring patience - 3-5 years after transplanting is not considered unusual before blooming commences (and 6-7 years for seed-grown plants)...and some protection is needed since there is no guarantee that munching of leaves will not happen again.

I too try to limit myself to growing animal unpalatable and poisonous plants but it doesn’t quite work out so easy. i hate to admit it but it looks like there needs to be some kind of challenge in gardening or any given activity or else it would be far too boring. It’s like succeeding without any hardships. I’ll think of it like that. Btw one of my peony bloomed in their first spring. I planted them in fall of 2016 and it bloomed one flower in 2017 spring and even more in 2018 spring. I was surprised myself too.

One thing I don’t understand is how rabbits eat something poisonous and think it’s good. Let alone be alive.

Many of the garden paeonies (p.officinalis) have a lot of innate vigour and can bloom the first year after transplant if enough rootmass and eyebuds are present, but, ime, the species paeonia (such as obovata and emodi) have always been much slower. GardenGal will probably know more than me - I have never bought a nursery-grown paeony, just grown them from seed...and you don't even see a leaf till year 3, then 2 more years in a pot, then 2-3 more in the ground before an appearance of a bloom, so for me, it has always been a looooong wait (with many falling by the wayside from disposing of pots, mistakenly digging them up and so on).

I am in year 4 with my latest bunch of single pinks - veitchii, mascula - they go in the ground this autumn (when they are effectively 'off my hands'). Titchy, tiny little things still.

Yup when I bought them they were already 3 year old rhizomes(pretty huge) packed in peat in a bag. So they were already mature plants to begin with, I think it takes a couple years for them to settle in their home. I was going to try taking seeds this year from it(probably not gonna happen) but 5+ years is a long time...4 years but still that tiny huh. I don’t know if I can have that much patience !

Btw do you know if the woodland peonies take drought ok? I have these under 4 large trees(Norway, red maple, oak, and elm). All except the Norway are well over 100 ft tall. The Norway maybe 60-70 ft. And the peonies seem to do just fine without any special care. Although their foliage does completely brown by September.

My herbaceous and tree paeonies appeared unaffected during the droughty horror show of last year but I will be watching this years growth with interest. By and large, once established, these are very tough and resilient plants. My baby woodlanders are coping with a sandy, root-filled, dry soil,...but still too early to tell. My offspring are (reluctantly) hosting spares just in case.

Ok good to know. after all they are woodlanders which means they thrive under trees and even if they’re not notorious trees like the Norway maples they probably deal with some sort of root competition from larger trees in the wild and they’re adapted.

Jay, Here is the artemisia princeps. The crown itself doesn’t have any growth yet but the spreading roots seem too which is weird. On the second pic you can see the main crown in the background.

Am preparing to have a fence built around the entirety of my yard and this thread was timely in getting me to consider the wire selection. Yes, it's primarily for deer exclusion, though by choosing game wiring with small diameter openings, I can also prevent rabbit and porcupines from entering, and maybe even those lousy cats that love to poop under the deck !!

If it is for deer you need more than a fence. You need at least two possibly three fences. They can jump over just one if it is 8 feet tall or under.

Wow porcupines. Don't hear much of that around here. I use a net fence on the t posts around some of my large beds but use individual wire cages for one or 2 plants.

This is the first year I have gone outside and seen daylillies barely above ground that have already been nibbled on. I feel your peony pain.

Yeah, this is almost (not quite) the first year in my 30 yr gardening history that rabbits did severe damage. Must be something about the weather patterns.

This year the rabbits have been strangely absent. Maybe my dog has finally scared them off?

Anyway, I wanted to show the OP one of my bare root peonies that was planted rudely by me in a bunny path. One bunny last year decided to teach me a lesson and chopped off every growth. I was super concerned although it did grow back. It also came back this year - evidence below.

If you notice, I put that yellow globe in front and elegantly stuck sticks to keep it in place. That's to prevent the bunnies from mowing it over as they dive beneath the fence.