Unless it's so tough they can't get their teeth through it, they'll eat it. I recommend spraying with a mixture of water, hot sauce, and liquid soap. Spray early so their first opinion is that your plants taste bad, and respray after rain, as it will wash off, and you need to keep your plants icky tasting.

I think they will both survive for sure but I agree the rabbits will keep coming back. Sorry, rabbits and deer are the worst!

It's weird. I have 15 other hostas in the yard, but they don't touch them. Just hostas that are in this particular bed. Maybe they like it because it's more secluded. Who knows.

Very possibly so that the rabbits like the secluded bed as they really have no natural defenses against predators (other than to super over populate.) I agree with oursteelers that they both will survive. I have a Prairie Sky that so damaged by cutworms last year, I wasn’t sure it would survive. It did come back to a healthy state and even flowered. That has gotten the ammonia drench already!

That bed is likely in a preferred spot, the shrubbery behind give somewhere to hide, and it's possible that's closest to home for them, as well.

Any chance the badly eaten one will make it?

==>> 100% certain it will make it ...

and if there is any doubt.. dig it up.. throw it on the driveway .. and replant it....

and it will still make it ....

this is no worse than everyone who got frost or freeze last week ... and theirs wont die either ...

im not sure i would be spraying goos all over a wax coated blue hosta .. it wont kill it .. but it might get ugly...

do i recall blood meal as a wabbit dissuader??? . im not sure on that ...

ken

I have rabbit damage every year and it is usually the ones on the edge near cover that get eaten first. They always seem to survive but come back smaller the next year. I have had some completely eaten to the stems, absolutely no leaves and they did come back the next year.

Liquid Fence seems to work fairly good but needs to be reapplied fairly often. I am lax with that because of the cost factor. This year I am trying the concentrate product which is about half the cost. I think blood meal will also help and also milorganite.

First Frost is such a nice one, hopefully you find a solution.

I know the feeling. This year I'm using the DeerOff deer repellent pods. Supposed to work for 4 months and even after rain. I had to buy multiple packages as I have a lot of ground to cover. But I $pent enough $$$ on the plants so protecting them is worth it. So far, so good. Except for when the temperature drops below 40 degrees and then I spray. I plan on spraying again when the daylillies bloom. How do you know if your deer repellent is working? You don't, until it doesn't. Will it work on rabbits? Don't know. The dogs tend to keep them away.

Yes, dried blood or blood meal works wonders and feeds the hosta as well. Just be careful if you have dogs as they can get sick if they eat enough of it.

tj

ummmm... if you have dogs.. then you probably dont have asmuch of a rabbit problem ...

feral cats work also ...

btw.. when i was a lawn warrior in suburbia.. i had more rabbit damage in my fenced 1/3 acre ... than i ever did on unfenced rural 5 acres ..

and my deduction ... what i call a lawn on 5 acres .... is more like a mowed meadow .. and the rabbits tend toward that salad bar.. rather than going after the garden plants .. go figure... it was the monoculture green grass that was the problem ...

so.. one solution is to sow some native weeds into your grass .. lol ...

ken

When the dogs come in the rabbits come out so not much of a deterrent. And your meadow may help but hawks and owls also keep fur rat populations down.

tj

yeah .... i forgot about the birds or prey ...

If you distribute dog poop near the plants, will that keep the rabbits away? Has anyone ever tried it?

We keep weeds in our grass (clover, etc). I like the look and figured it'd keep the rabbits happy and away from my plants... Think again. They want the clover and the hostas!

Will move my First Frosts to a less secluded location and plant Japanese Forest Grass there instead (it's almost full shade).

Our dog is not allowed to roam, so he's not much help with rabbits. We do have Great Horned Owls who eat a lot of rabbits (judging by the contents of owl pellets we find every spring), but they don't get them all. I saw one yesterday that was so big, I called him Harvey.

We put a chicken wire fence around the veggie garden, but the back yard is too big to fence. Our neighbors have a shed in their yard, and the rabbits burrow under it, which is great for the bunnies, not so great for me!

You live in the USA guns work( just kidding m they want to take our's away in Canada) or trap them

https://www.hunker.com/13405816/home-remedy-for-rabbits-eating-hostas

We spray often and alternate sprays, Liquid Fence, DeerOff, etc. When the daylilies are in bloom we spray twice a week. We have deer and rabbits and an unfenced yard. We also have a large dog who refuses to go into the backyard--she's was rescued when she was 7 so there's no changing her ways. However, when we had a Neopolitan Mastiff, think very large with a prey instinct, the deer didn't care, they knew she was with us on a leash. Sprays are our best defense.

We live in suburbia.

I would just add that most effective homemade concoctions list eggs as an ingredient. Such as this one.

. 4 pcs of raw egg (beaten using mixers)

• 4 cloves of garlic (minced)
• 4 cups of water
• 4 tablespoons of dairy (milk or yoghurt to make it dense and sticky)
• 4 tablespoons pepper (the hottest, the better)

The rabbits had another litter! Just saw little ones in my yard. Good bye, Hostas! I will try the recipes you all have posted, to avoid a store trip. If that doesn't work, bone meal it is!

Not bone meal...blood meal (or dried blood).

tj

REPELLENT PRODUCTPROTECTION
INDEX SCORE Physical Fence:100%
Bobbex93% Hinder83%
Liquid Fence78% Chew Not74% Big Game72% Deer-Off65%
Plantskydd60%
Coyote Urine53%
Deer Solution52%
Repellex50% Control49% Connecticut State test. Buying the concentrate will save some money.

Jon, thanks for that. Can you provide the link?

https://bobbex.com/1-rated-deer-repellent/

https://bobbex.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ctagstationreport.pdf