Many people find hot pepper spray effective for deterring rabbits. I'd not heard of using cinnamon before. They are irritating little buggers. I'm seeing rabbits for the first time, since we used to have fox living close by to keep them under control. Haven't seen the fox in a long time. We still have hawk and owls. Hopefully, they are actively hunting those rabbits.

Martha

Plantsrydd is organic (simply dried blood) and effective. Not as cheap as hot pepper spray but if you get really fed up try it. It gets the best reviews for effectiveness. otoh maybe not worth it for one plant. But will bunnies stop at just phlox?

Would bird netting deter them from getting at the plants?

I choose to grow plants that the rabbits and deer leave alone. Except hostas, since I'm given donations for free and they multiply like weeds. Even the deer can't kill hostas.

Martha

I had a barber once tell me that human hair deters rabbits, though I've never tried that. This year it would have been continually washed away by all the rain.

This spring has been pretty bad for rabbit damage. Perhaps it because I was planting in the back yard near where they live, rather than out by the street as I was last year. After a few costly losses (particularly a calycanthus I had ordered), I put some cages around the stuff I was most worried about. I bought a few plastic ones at a garden center, and made some of my own using 1/2" wire fencing. So far so good.

mrtulin, thanks for the tip on the Plantsrydd. I'm going to give that a try. Already tried the pepper spray (a homemade concoction that I had read about) for grasshoppers last year with disastrous results - but that's another story. I may give Plantsrydd a try, though. Stir_fryi, I sympathize! Rabbits have grown to be mortal enemies to me. At my place, they have eaten up plant after plant after plant... and of course it's usually one of my most prized plants that they always choose. I even bought a plant last year that is known to be something that rabbits leave alone, but somebody didn't tell my bunnies that. They wasted no time completely eating it all up. Also, I never heard of using cinnamon spray to deter rabbits. Your phlox was eaten while you were gone on a trip, but did the spray work to keep the rabbits off before then?

It *just* occurred to me, seeing your photo with the one plant so tall, that the rabbits are eating my phlox, too. Mine are only a couple of inches high and everything else around them is a foot plus. I don't know why I didn't figure this out earlier. The bunnies have also eaten my peas and my spinach this year. I guess I'll be making a trip to the hardware store tonight to look for some sort of deterrant.

We have a perennial problem with bunnies. I have tried liquid fence and putting up little fences around my prized plants - the little buggers continued to chow down. In the end, the only thing that worked was trapping them (and releasing them far, far away from our house). We have 2 havahart traps and we caught something like 6-7 rabbits last year and this year we've caught 4. The key is to get the adults in late winter/early spring before you even think about your garden. This year we've had much better luck with rabbits since we were on top of the rabbits since Feb/March. Good luck!

Another tip I've heard is try not to let them get a first taste; they'll go back to the buffet. I wondered why prolific little hosta 'lemon and lime" were nubs and not growing. Then I realized the bunnies were enjoying hosta sandwiches every time the plants got an inch or two tall.

They stopped after the plantskyll last year. This year I was proactive and treated early on and they only ate one that came up late and I missed treating. Reminds me to go treat again after two days of heavy rain.

I'm warning you if this stuff gets on you or your gloves and gets wet it will look like you've been murdering people. Covered in blood. And it doesn't smell good when wet. Read the amazon reviews. Forewarned is forearmed. But it works like a charm and you can just pretend its the latest in garden fashion to be soaked in blood.

Marie

I am trying to trap a rabbit right now (live trap), it's not working. I used lettuce this morning, switched to baby carrots tonight. marthastoo, what do you use for trapping?

Thanks

We've mostly used apple slices, but sometimes grapes and carrots. One or two times we caught a bunny with no bait at all (I set it before I had a chance to put bait in it just in case. I guess we have curious bunnies who like to investigate rectangular metal boxes...).

Thanks for the info, I will try apple slices. I have one living underneath a garden shed eats my roses.

I've had bunnies chow down on plants early in the season that ended up looking good by the time it bloomed. Asters come to mind, but maybe this "pruning" may end up being beneficial. A lot of plants can take a haircut in June to delay or stagger the blooms.

Marthastoo, For some reason, the rabbit doesn't like my apple. What kind of apple do you use? I think this rabbit has fancy taste.....

We did not have too much success with full-grown rabbits - juvenile bunnies were much easier to catch. I can't remember what variety of apple we used - whatever we had in the fridge, so probably fuji, honeycrisp, braeburn, etc.

Thanks, I will get more apples tomorrow.......

Gee, I thought the wind was blowing over my phlox plants. We have all kinds of animals since a creek runs through the back of our yard. Recently we have had more squirrels than rabbits, but that could change. We have always had large hawks, too. When our puppies were young, we would never let them into our fenced in yard until we thought they were big enough to handle them selves with a hawk. We have golden retrievers. My neighbor saw a hawk grab a rabbit once.

Sammy