"You could use a snowblower to completely bury the Forsythias, and that would discourage the rabbits." That's a great idea! Next time we're inundated with snow we will definitely take your advice. We never even thought of doing that. It was in the mid 50's all weekend so all the snow has long since melted. I went outside to look for vole tracks but I didn't see any. And none of my bushes got even a nibble. Thank goodness. We don't own any guns so shooting the rabbits is pretty much out of the question. Dh and I have never held a gun in our lives so I don't think we could do it anyway. There are SO many rabbits out here, thousands of them, because they all live on 300 acres of that my neighbor owns. Trapping them would be pointless. They have it made because he only mows maybe twice in the summer so they have all that land to themselves.... This post was edited by ilovemytrees on Sun, Dec 22, 13 at 17:21

Though I don't have a large wooded property I have lots of rabbits. Several years ago I fenced in an area for my vegetables and some favorite perennials that were rabbit favorites as well. Any new tulips go in this area. The rest of my yard is unfenced. Some times I have placed a chicken wire cage over certain plants. Many shrubs get the wire cage treatment for winter or the rabbits will eat the bark off killing the shrub. The one thing that has consistently worked for me is Liquid Fence. I know it is expensive. I buy the concentrate and mix my own which helps with costs. I don't spray everything, just the plants that rabbits and deer eat. Some plants needed to be sprayed only when the foliage is new and tender. Others need to be sprayed 3/4 times during the season as new growth remains tender. Before using Liquid Fence I had some plants that I never saw bloom. Good luck with whatever you use.

Yes! Last year deer ate my entire Tsuga canadensis 'Everitt Golden', and did a decent amount of damage to my Tsuga chinensis and Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Jubilee'. The deer are only bold enough to attack one side of my yard where my dog cannot access them and it's backed up to the woods, so I only have one area to focus on protecting. I ended up caging mine in chicken wire this year... But did brainstorm a long term solution, which might work for you... I have heard that staking an area of the garden and then encircling with finishing line is very effective and does not hinder your winter view of your evergreens either. If I always had to hide my conifers under cages each winter, I might as well just collect deciduous trees... defeats the point. I would research and build a perimeter of fishing line around your garden. When the deer bump into the invisible line, they will go nuts and take off...

Larry, I thought of you this morning when I went outside early and there were 4 or 5 bunnies hopping around the yard. Once the bunnies see our rabbit-hunting cat, Tiny Baby (no longer Tiny and no longer a Baby either) with me, they run off. He'll catch a rabbit and carry it around and play with it, but he won't kill it, so I usually can grab him and set a rabbit free if he is just carrying it in his mouth. It hasn't been too bad of a snake year this year so far. I think all our copperheads are someplace else this year because I've barely seen any at all, but we have lots of garter snakes. Tim sees them more than I do. I think he sees them mostly when he is out jogging or when he's mowing. I see them in the yard and in the garden when I see them. Today a timber rattler could have bitten me if it had wanted. I had just closed the garden gate around 10:20 a.m. and was going to pick up an item off the ground before heading inside. I heard a rattle and froze in my tracks. I quickly located the snake and backed away a safe distance. (Now, yesterday a little voice in my head told me to carry a gun when I went outside, so I did. Today there was no voice in my head, so I didn't carry my gun out there....). If there is one thing I've learned about snakes it is that after you see them, if you leave them to go inside and get a gun, they will not be sitting there waiting for you to come back out and shoot them. I did have my cell phone with me, and Tim was at home, so I called him. I called him 6 times and sent him 3 text messages. No response. I knew if I left to come inside the snake would disappear into the garden, so I waited and watched the snake. I knew Tim had to leave the house within 20 or 30 minutes to go to work, so figured eventually he'd either check his phone or come outside to leave for work. Finally I heard a banging sound in the garage and started yelling his name. Eventually he came down the driveway to see what was wrong. He got a gun and killed the rattlesnake. I was shaking. That probably is the closest I've come to being bitten in a good 10 years. It was less than a foot from me when it rattled and I froze, located it and backed away. It was coiled up against the garden fence and just drew its head back and rattled, and that saved me. It just as easily could have bitten me. After it all was over and Tim had disposed of the snake, he told me how lucky I was that it was a timber rattler (they are rather shy and non-aggressive) and not a western diamondback rattler, because a more aggressive rattlesnake likely would have bitten me. Timber rattlers are supposed to be somewhat endangered, but we have them all over the place here and I normally see several a year, but not all close up and personal like this one was. The venom can be pretty toxic. He also promised me he'd carry his phone with him at all times now whether he is in the house or going in and out from the garage to the house or whatever. I thought we had settled that issue back in the year of the cougar sightings, but so many years have passed now and he's gotten bad about leaving his phone lying around in the house. Often it is upstairs and he is downstairs. I generally keep my phone with me all the time, having learned an important lesson about that when one of our neighbors fell and broke her hip on their seldom-traveled private road and laid out there, helpless, by the mailbox for several hours until someone arrived home and found her. I hate snakes, and I've learned that if I am not carrying a gun, I'd sure better have the phone with me or the venomous snake will get away. They can roam all they want on at least 11 of our 14+ acres, but if they are in the garden, driveway, garage, potting shed, chicken coops or yard, we shoot them. Dorothy, We had a rough green tree snake that used to hang out in the garden and eat stuff. For some reason, seeing the green ones doesn't freak me out as much as seeing other snakes, so I tolerated his or her presence. Its' favorite place was the top of the shade cloth over the peppers, putting it at just about my eye level. I didn't see it last year or this year, so guess something happened to it and it no longer is here. Lots of the ranchers here like having a rat snake in their barns to keep the rodents down, but if I knew we had a snake in a building, I'd never step foot in that buildlng. In an average year, I'll have one or two scary rattlesnake encounters, so I guess that for 2013 this is one down, one to go. Dawn