Rabbit Relief

I’ve had a garden in most parts of the country. I’ve gardened where the setting was idyllic. I’ve also battled intense dry heat, damp heat, drought, mildew, deer, raccoon, cabbage loopers, tomato hornworms, grasshoppers, leafhoppers, clay, sand. I figured I’d gained a bit of experience over the years. My first year in Albuquerque, my garden was an unmitigated disaster. The curved-billed thrashers dug up all my new transplants and the spring winds blasted what was left. My lettuce was crisp, though more like toast than an iceberg. I didn’t get a single tomato on my six plants that year. I knew I was dealing with the culture shock I expected, but there was one thing I wasn’t prepared for: rabbits.

The voracity of the animals was shocking. First they ate the kale and swiss chard down to the ground. Then they ate the dahlias. The ornamental grasses disappeared. I learned why Eragrostis trichodes is called the “ice cream grass.” They moved on to the chocolate flower, then the desert willow was chewed off at ground level, then all the penstemon were neatly clipped off. The opuntia were down to stubs. These lasted a week, then the gravel around them was mysteriously excavated and the remaining bits chewed out. My claret cup cactus developed open semi-circular wounds overnight. Even the Yucca, sumac, salvia and Artemesia were chewed to the ground. And these are supposed to be ignored by rabbits.

I declared war. I blocked the space under the garden fence with bricks. They dug under them. I dug down and put in more bricks. They still appeared in the garden, looking at me as they devoured another plant. I put up chicken wire. They jumped over. I set traps (useless). One morning I looked out my window and saw a rabbit sitting on the top of my three-foot wall. He ignored me until I approached him, then looked at me disdainfully before hopping off.

The rabbits have won. But I haven’t given up. But neither have I listened to the old saying “If you can’t beat ‘em, join em.” I’ve learned to garden with the rabbits. From the standpoint of a landscape architect, it would seem that in designing for a location with rabbit cancer, planning for it could make or break an installation.

Rabbits will sample anything that is just planted. “Sampling” in a seedling means that plant is eaten off at the roots. In rabbit infested sites, protect newly planted plants for the first year. The exception would be large woody plants. Mostly, rabbits like juicy, tender growth. They eat to obtain water as well as nourishment. They don’t like plants with little moisture in them, nor do they like strong fragrance. Bigger plants at planting time means more tough tissue, and though the rabbits may eat the tender new growth, they generally leave the year-old growth alone. I’ve noticed that if the ornamental grasses are left with a foot of old stems in the spring, the rabbits will eat some of the new shoots that poke through, but mostly leave the rest alone. Just because a plant has spines or fuzzy leaves, doesn’t mean that a rabbit will leave it alone. In times of drought, a hungry, thirsty rabbit will eat ANYTHING. Here is a list of plants that are a bit more rabbit resistant. It’s a surprisingly long list.

In my garden, they generally don’t touch:
Agapanthus
Agastache (most – they will eat Agastache neomexicana, which recovers)
Allium
Aquilegia
Ballota
Basil
Cacti, when densely spined such as Echinocereus reichenbachii
Caryopteris
Ceanothus
Chamaebatiera
Chrysothanmus nauseosus
Cistus
Cotinus
Cotoneaster
Crinum
Dasylirion
Eriogonum
Euphorbia
Gutierrezia
Hymenocallis
Iris
Juniper
Lavandula
Liriope
Most Salvia, especially desert salvias. They will eat Salvia argentea.
Origanum
Penstemon (they eat P. grandiflora, and seedlings of species that don’t grow naturally in the area. They also sample many species even if they don’t devour them, as if they are just checking to remind themselves.)
Perilla
Perovskia
Rhus (they will nip off seedlings or small plants at ground level).
Rosmarinus
Scuttelaria
Stachys
Strawberry leaves
Trachycarpus
Veronica

They will eat, but plants recover well:
Artemesia species (Artemesia versicolor looks better after a “rabbit winter” than when left alone).
Agave (recovers with time, and rabbits get bored of it, but they will eat small plants to the ground. Agave parryi seems most resistant, Agave americana least resistant)
Berlandiera lyrata
Cercocarpus (protect seedlings)s
Ericameria (lower branches and small plants are browsed)
Fallugia paradoxa (they will eat seedlings)
Gaura lindheimeri
Heuchera
Melampodium leucanthum (protect first year, then allow to self sow in gravel mulched bed, where numbers of seedlings ensure survival)
Mirabilis (re-grows very quickly after browsing to ground)
Penstemon grandiflora (they eat flower stems), hybrid penstemon
Yucca (some plants are never allowed to grow past browsing stage, protect until large)

They will devour:
Cacti with few spines
Cotyledon orbiculata (leaves large unsightly holes in leaves, but usually survives, even if plants are always unsightly)
Crocus (may recover, but not always)
Dalea (until big enough)
Dianthus (don’t even think about it)
Eriogonum jamesii
Hesperaloe (until plants are large enough)
Most seedlings of any sort
Most succulents
Most vegetables
Opuntia (until it is big)
Ornamental grasses (they survive, but are left with irregular holes in them).
Sunflower seedlings
Yucca seedlings

My garden has recovered. Many plants have grown so that rabbit damage is barely noticeable. Now if I can only stop my neighbor from feeding them carrots every morning. The rabbits line up like a buffet line in front of his door. Then they come to my yard for dessert. But now they are finding less and less to eat.