With a title like that, this post could really go in a couple different directions. So I'll warn you now, rather than get your hopes up, that this post is not about how adorable these fluffy little angels are. Oh no. These evil jerks, after being allowed to nibble clover in our "pollinator lawn," have gone full Peter Rabbit and are destroying my garden and even some tree saplings. This family is out to get us and clearly does not feel threatened by our sad attempts to chase them away. Let's look at some of the damage and how we are (ineffectively) combating it.
This year's garden started out well in the spring:
We got some beautiful Royal Purple radishes that I will most definitely plant again. It was a bumper crop, coming up just as the snap peas were starting to flower.
And then, suddenly, we started noticing the tops of some radishes getting chewed. Which was weird because we have a fence. Then the radishes themselves. And then, horror of horrors, the bottoms of some of our snap pea plants got snipped right at the base! We were puzzled until one day when I stepped outside and saw the cutest baby bunny. IN OUR GARDEN. It was small enough to hop through our fence (as I watched when it saw me) and had been feasting in there on our greens!
We cleared the dead snap peas and I planted some pumpkins in their place (the dark circle at the front of the garden). After a trip to Home Depot, we were ready to turn our garden into Fort Knox for bunnies. No one gets in here.
Or so we thought. Until the following week when we saw a very tiny bunny INSIDE the wire-coated garden. And almost all our snap peas murdered. (You can't really see it in this picture, but almost everything tall in this picture is actually no longer attached to their roots.)
We have no idea if someone left the door open the tiniest bit or if the bunny was able to slip under or between wires. However it got in, the bunny was so scared that it had a lot of trouble escaping as I approached, and I did have a pang of sympathy watching it panic as I tried to flush it from the garden. I'm not actually heartless. But all those snap peas ruined!
Another victim, beginning last year, seems to be our Black-eyed Susans, which have stopped coming up in our front garden and seem to keep being snipped. We thought it was a deer but I've since become convinced that this is also the fault of bunnies:
The few that are coming up are buried in other plants, so our thinking is that those are more protected from bunny predators:
And the latest victim, from earlier this week, of this willow oak that we planted in April. It went from being a stick to a hearty, leafy little tree. We were excited that it was thriving and that we might end up, one day, with a giant oak tree in the middle of our yard. Here it is in April, a little twig:
And in July, just a few mornings ago, when I walked out of my house, I saw it leaning on the tomato cage we'd installed around it to discourage animals (and make it easier not to mow over). Here it is, propped on the cage. See how happy it was? As if to rub salt in the wound, the bunny who almost certainly committed the crime was right there nibbling, inches away. So if nothing else, it proved that the bunnies are to blame.
And despite all this, we can't resist follow the ins and outs of the bunny family, which numbers at least four members, but likely more, including an adorable baby (probably a second litter? since the one that got into our garden over a month ago is probably bigger by now)
One of the adults, up close:
This is not our house but it is nearby and where I managed to grab a picture of baby bun:
So what do we do? Generally I'm fine with yard wildlife but they really do seem to be decimating everything we plant. A quick search online suggests things like bone meal and black pepper. I'm curious if anyone has experience with something that works.
