cat and dogs in our house take care of rabbits. Having a big veggie garden I have to say that rabbits do stay selective and if you grow green beans they will feast there and leave everything else alone unless there is rabbit nest with multitude of them...

Fencing off your new hosta will help some. Offering something else for rabbits only like separate bed with green beans? Feeding them in distant location?

My veggie garden is in the back yard where the dog likes to hang and the rabbits stay out. Most of my hostas are in the front yard where it's shady though. Dog isn't trusted enough to roam free, so I can't count on his help there. Unfortunately, we have an abandoned house next door with a number of brush piles where they seem to live. Keeping up with the liquid fence seems to work the best for keeping them away, but it's not 100%.

really, mostly I'm wondering if there's anything ideal to do now that the deed is done. I think rabbits being rabbits is just life, unfortunately...

Can you buy or make a chicken wire cage to protect the new leaves that will start to grow? They are going to be tasty and tender...

Rabbits here eat my impatiens flowers...DH's BB gun solved our issues.

I had a new hosta, still in its pot, eaten to the dirt, not a single leaf left this spring. I protected it for the rest of the summer and used liquid fertilizer like I do for my container gardens. It has come back with new leaves and should be fine next year. I suggest protecting it with some sort of cage and watering it regularly. An occasional weak dose of liquid fertilizer may help.

Rabbits here don't eat them to the ground. They just eat the leaves and leave the stems. This seems to keep them going until the Spring. The stems stay green, which means they are alive.

I,m lucky. No bunnies. The fox population keeps them at bay.