Chicken wire and hardware cloth both work very well at keeping rabbits out. If you're not familiar, hardware cloth is a wire mesh that looks like a window screen, but the square holes are larger. You can fence in an entire area, like a vegetable patch, or surround a specific tree or young plant that needs protection.
As their twitching noses indicate, rabbits sniff a lot. Try sprinkling dried sulfur around or on your plants. Rabbits also dislike the smell of onions, so try planting these around your garden to further deter the furry creatures. To discourage pesky rabbits, try dusting your plants with plain talcum powder.
Plants like nasturtiums, garlic, onion, rhubarb, oregano, basil and geranium are effective at keeping rabbits out of garden beds. Also, sprinkling cayenne pepper around the garden (or even on the plants) will send rabbits packing. They'll sniff this spicy stuff and high-tail it out of there.
But don't run to the store for repellant just yet—vinegar is an easy way to deter rabbits from stealing your veggies! Simply soak a cotton ball in white vinegar and place it in a small jar or canister with holes poked in the lid. Place these around the garden, and the vinegar scent will help to keep the rabbits at bay.
Powerful odors will deter rabbits. Garlic, peppers, and strong herbs like ginger and mint tend to keep rabbits away from your yard. A light mixture of water and strong-smelling liquid soap should also do the trick.
What are rabbits afraid of? 'Rabbits are naturally fearful of anything coming from above, like their predators would. If we bend down to pick them up, that action is scary,' says Rosie. 'They also dislike being lifted up, as that's what happens when they're in a predator's mouth.
On a small property, the best way over the long term to prevent rabbits from damaging your plants and from digging is to fence them out. This requires a solid or mesh fence with a dug-in section of small-gauge wire at the bottom.
Onions, garlic, marigolds, lavender, catnip-many plants are credited with being deterrents to rabbits. What they all have in common is a strong scent.
Arm & Hammer TM Baking Soda will help keep rabbits away from your plants. “Sprinkle baking soda around your vegetable garden. Make a thin but visible ring of baking soda around each plant. This will dissuade rabbits from nibbling on them.
To make this rabbit repellent, first fill a one gallon container, such as a milk jug, with water. Crush 5 garlic cloves and add then to the water. Add a teaspoon of crushed red peppers and 1 tablespoon of dish soap. Shake the container very well and then place in outdoors in the direct sun for two days.
Rabbit manure is organic matter and improves poor soil structure, drainage and moisture retention. It improves the life cycle of microorganisms in the soil. Worms love rabbit manure. It is not as smelly as other manures and is easy to handle.
Poisoning with sodium monofluoroacetate (1080) is one of the most effective methods of quickly reducing rabbit numbers and is usually performed prior to harbour destruction and warren fumigation. 1080 is an odourless, tasteless white powder that has a special dye added for identification of the toxin.
Baiting is one of the most effective ways to reduce rabbit population over large areas and should be considered as a precursor to further rabbit control based around warren destruction. Significantly reducing rabbit populations immediately before ripping will provide better long term management.
Sprinkling coffee grounds among your plants may help to ward off rabbits and other small mammals due to coffee's powerful scent. Plus, it composts naturally over time, giving your plants some extra nutrients!
Rabbits almost always symbolize prosperity, abundance, good luck, and fertility. Unlike many other animals, which have different meanings in different cultures, rabbit symbolism is consistent. In most European cultures, rabbits are springtime animals, symbolic of fruitfulness and renewal.
Although rabbit-proof plants don't exist, there are some that rabbits don't like because of their strong scents such as basil, garlic, rhubarb, hot peppers, spicy basil, and mint.
You can protect shrubs or saplings by wrapping their bases with aluminum foil. The foil should at least be as high as your waist because deer are very adept to feeding on plants that are shorter than they are. This foil force field can also deter other pesky nibblers like mice and rabbits.
Apple Cider Vinegar keeps the rabbits immune system up also preventing urinary tract problems like infections and bladder sludge (this is caused from excess calcium) and promotes a less potent urine therefore reducing the smell. ACV keeps the rabbits body's ph regulated, clearing up skin conditions and infections.
The short answer is yes. Soapy water is an effective way to keep rabbits away from your garden. The reason why this works is because rabbits have very sensitive noses and the scent of soap can be overwhelming for them. This will cause them to stay away from the area where the soap is present.
Rabbit Repellents
Try soaking old corncobs in vinegar for a few minutes, then placing them around the edges of the garden. Resoak them after a few weeks to renew the vinegar. Mashing up hot peppers with gelatin or wax also forms a spicy rabbit-repellent paste that you can spread around the borders of the garden.
Plants rabbits tend to avoid include: Vegetables: asparagus, leeks, onions, potatoes, rhubarb, squash, tomatoes. Flowers: cleomes, geraniums, vincas, wax begonias. Herbs: basil, mint, oregano, parsley, tarragon.
There is no better or more economical way to keep rabbits out of the garden than good chicken wire, or wire mesh perimeter fence, bottom bent outward and sunk to a depth of at least 6″ under the soil, and at a height of about 3 feet. You can also protect individual plants or rows with cages, or mesh.
Plants that rabbits dislike include lavender, penstemon, artemesia, hyssop, sages, shasta daisy, gaillardia, common butterfly bush, blue mist spirea and columbine.
These are reportedly not tasty to rabbits and hares, so plant away : aquilegia, astilbe, foxglove, echinops (globe thistle), impatiens (busy lizzie), lupin and sunflower.