Rabbits
Oryctolagus cuniculus
Graze young plants to the ground and gnaw bark in winter. Rabbit fencing sunk 30 cm into the soil, or individual guards, are the only sure defenses.
How to know it
Rabbit damage is cut cleanly at a 45-degree angle, as if with secateurs, and reaches to about 50 cm above the ground or the snow line. Round droppings in scattered piles and shallow scrapes in beds and lawns confirm it.
What you'll see
- Young plants grazed off cleanly at an angle, to a level line about knee height.
- Rows of seedlings and salad leaves cropped to stubs overnight.
- Bark stripped from young trees and shrubs in winter, up to the height they can reach.
- Round droppings in piles, and shallow scrapes in beds and lawn.
- Damage that stops abruptly at a fence line or a wall.
Where it comes from
Breeding from spring to autumn and resident all year, with a burrow system that may be nowhere near your garden. Pressure is heaviest in spring, when young growth is soft and the population is rising, and in hard winters when bark becomes worth eating.
Rural and edge-of-town gardens with rough grass, hedgerow, scrub or woodland nearby. Any gap under a fence, however small, is the whole problem.
Dealing with it
- Fence with 30 mm wire mesh at least 1.2 m high, with the bottom 30 cm buried or turned outward into an L below ground.
- Fit individual spiral guards or mesh collars to the trunks of young trees and shrubs.
- Walk the fence line regularly — one scrape under it undoes the whole thing.
- Cover vulnerable rows with mesh cloches or low tunnels.
- Treat repellents and deterrents as, at best, a stopgap until the fence is up.
Keeping it out
- Fence first and plant afterwards where rabbits are known; retrofitting is far harder.
- Clear scrub, brambles and long grass adjoining the garden where rabbits shelter.
- Grow rabbit-resistant plants outside the fence — euphorbia, lavender, rosemary, foxglove, alliums.
- Guard every new tree at planting rather than waiting for the first winter.
- Keep guards clear of the trunk and check them as the tree thickens.
What it goes for
Lettuce, brassicas, beans, peas, carrot tops, tulips and young trees and shrubs of almost any kind.
See also
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's bestiary at cottagegardencompanion.com