All my rhododendrons and hollies were stripped down low during the snow/cold spell this winter by deer. IIRC, when it happened before those branches did grow new leaves eventually.

What kind of damage are you talking about? Eaten leaves? Eaten branches? Bark stripped branches? Bitten branches?

I'm personally not familiar with rabbit damage. That particular kind of critter doesn't have a long shelf life around here (when getting the mail yesterday, I saw a sort of hawk convention over my house - more than 20 of them) Deer, OTOH, are too big for most of the local predators.

Thanks for the comments. I would think deer are as bad if not worse than rabbits. I will have to take some photos of the damage. I pruned a couple of shrubs yesterday. One a Hydrangea, I just shaped and ignored the damage, the other was a Clethra that had to be cut back to the ground 2 years ago and now will have to be done again.

I haven't looked at everything yet because the yard had a lot of snow and ice in it. I can see from the window, two Arborvitae in large pots, that have been there for a decade at least and never been touched. But somehow a rabbit must have gotten up on the pot and then stood on it's back legs to eat all the green off about a foot and a half of the bottom of both shrubs. I'll take some photos later today. Thanks.

I was able to take a few photos. Not that great because I borrowed a phone camera I was unfamiliar with using...but I think they are good enough.

Sorry to hear you are having this trouble too SAH. I have a few on your list that are untouched. But this Arborvitae in a pot, after all these years, was a surprise. So you don't prune below the damage, then? You just see how they fare over the season and if they don't perform as usual you prune at next dormant season?

Floral, I don't understand your post... sorry.

You just see how they fare over the season and if they don't perform as usual you prune at next dormant season?

Not so much "performance" but the shape the plant takes on after the rabbit "pruning". A few nibbled stems won't affect the health of an established shrub (full-on girdling is another story, however), so if the damage doesn't cause the new growth to look "wonky" in comparison to the untouched parts of the shrub, I'll leave it, but if not, I'll do a more complete "re-shaping" myself either after bloom (for things that bloom on old wood), or in the dormant season for the others.

Another mitigation strategy I've taken in some winters (this one included), is to leave a big pile of pruned wood from my fruit trees out for the rabbits as a buffet, or a "trap crop", since that's a big favorite of theirs and my hope is that it will keep them distracted for a while and away from other things.

My post went haywire because I had only just begun it and was called away. I was going to say that Arborvitae does not sprout from old wood so pruning would be pointless. If you think the plant is worth keeping I'd plant it in the ground. It would be better nourished and the bare parts would be lower to the ground.

Floral, So you are saying the Arborvitae won't regrow where they've stripped it? I do see some green growing out of some of the bare stems and the trunk, but....they may have outlived their usefulness anyway. They were just $30 potted shrubs I bought at a box store at least 6 years ago, just for these pots and they have outgrown the pots. I tried root pruning and adding new potting mix the year before but it really didn't seem to make a difference. I had planned to try to plant them in the ground to see if they would prosper but, I think if they are going to struggle to fill in their lower branches then I may just replace them with something else. They are bare a pretty big distance from the ground.

No, like most conifers (yew being a big exception), Arborvitae won't sprout from old wood. Anything green you see is left from what the rabbits didn't eat.

Okay Floral, Thanks - out they go! It was time to do something new any way.