Sunday, April 9, 2023

Save the rabbit? Save the hostas!

HALLIE EPHRON: Happy Easter!

For me, growing up in Southern California, Easter was all about spring break and bunny rabbits and chocolate eggs and (my favorite) jelly beans. Please, forgive me for my ignorance.

These days, Public Television is running a documentary, surely in honor of Easter, called REMARKABLE RABBITS. It's all about rabbits and hares.

The naturalists go on for some time about the Eastern cottontail, their remarkable mating dance, and how they're endangered and losing habitat in the northeast.

The disappearance of dense shrublands in the Northeast has had a drastic effect on the New England cottontail. To remedy this, biologists at the Roger Williams Park Zoo and the Queens Zoo have raised around 150 New England cottontails over the course of six years through a process called captive breeding. When the cottontails reach a certain age, they are then released back into the wild, where they must learn how to find food and evade predators within the first few hours of life in their new home.

The naturalists interviewed sure sound like they know their stuff, but I invite them to my neighborhood. We have rabbits. Lots of them. Any day of the week. Any time of day. Year 'round. And they leave behind bunny bullets everywhere, not jelly beans.

I can watch them cavorting in my lawn through the blinds in my living room.

Walk four blocks in any direction from my house and despite the lack of "dense shrublands" you WILL spot a rabbit. In all likelihood, you will see many rabbits. 

I hope and pray that those worthy naturalists from the Roger Williams Zoo and Queens Zoo are not breeding them and dropping them off here because I'd like to return to sender.

Because we have plenty of rabbits. What we are lacking are hungry hawks.

Happy Easter! From my curmudgeonly corner or suburbia.

And Please! Any brilliant ideas about how to coexist? I'm stocking up on fox urine to dowse my plants, hoping to discourage them from descimating my perennials.

SAVE THE HOSTAS!

39 comments:

  1. Happy Easter!

    As for the rabbits, according to the Farmer’s Almanac, you can discourage them from visiting your garden by sprinkling dried sulpher on or around your plants. Or, because rabbits do not care for the smell of onions, you can plant onions around your garden to discourage their visits. Or, dust your plants with talcum powder.

    Some chicken wire might also help keep those pesky rabbits away . . . . many gardeners find nasturtiums, garlic, rhubarb, oregano, basil, or geraniums help keep rabbits out of the garden. Or, sprinkle cayenne pepper around the garden or on the plants . . . . all humane ways of keeping rabbits away from the hostas . . . .

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  2. Thank you for starting my day with a good laugh. Although I am sure, this is not a funny situation to you (But it was all in the telling.) I'm sorry I don't know of any solutions. In Sacramento, we got excited when we spotted one little lone hare - and never saw it again, because we did have hawks in Sacramento. Joan's suggestions all sound great, so good luck.

    In Braga, to my knowledge this isn't a problem, although in the outlying fringes, maybe so. Here in town, there are gardens behind restaurants and an abundance of crowing roosters to accompany your lunch conversation. On the city streets — pigeons. Way too many of them. There must be hundreds. While I like pigeons, you CAN have too much of a good thing.

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  3. I live in a similar neighborhood, Hallie. Because of the pesky wabbits, I can't plant lettuce in the ground, which is why I have a high, deep planting box on metal legs. We also have a fat, hungry woodchuck most early summers.

    I can't think of suggestions beyond Joan's, although I doubt chicken wire will help much. Good luck!

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  4. I’m fascinated by your rabbit issues, Hallie. We have a giant rabbit, the biggest rabbit ever seen, living in our garden. Let’s call him Harvey.

    We also have tons of hostas. But Harvey does not care for them. Or anything else in the flowers beds. He prefers grass. He is a very polite rabbit

    Conversely there are the squirrels. Our squirrels are landscape architects. They spend their days digging up tulip bulbs for transplanting. In other people’s gardens. Once upon a time I had loads of red and yellow tulips. As their numbers decreased, I noted the same variety abounding in gardens all over the neighborhood. Pftt

    I’ll trade you a brace of squirrels for a rabbit family anytime

    Much love

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  5. I'm in a similar situation as Ann: rabbits, yes; hostas, yes. And foxes, too. Maybe they are the missing ingredient in your garden, Hallie...

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    1. LOL, Amanda!! Our hostas do not attract our bunnies. Last year, in the early summer, we had dozens of bunnies. One day there was a bunny rodeo between my neighbor's yard and ours. At least 10 bunnies were racing around, chasing one another all over the place. It was a hoot.
      It seems they prefer clover to almost anything else, but they did eat the dill and a couple other herbs.

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  6. I grew up with cottontails in Connecticut. I adored them and in this was surely influenced by our mother reading to us Robert Lawson's wonderful children's novels RABBIT HILL and THE TOUGH WINTER. Now I've lived for nearly forty years in the Adirondacks in the company of snowshoe hares. They are shyer and harder to spot but just as welcome to me.

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  7. I live in a small town with block after block of tasty gardens and a rabbit population to match. Maybe they are endangered in the wild, but not in towns.
    The powers that be should institute a program for rehoming, not breeding.

    I just learned the other day that rabbit reproduction is how Fibonacci arrived at the famous fibonacci sequence -- 1,1,2,3,5,8,13, etc.

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  8. Bunnies, yes. Hostas, lots. Also foxes and coyotes. A family of groundhogs, too, much to the dismay of my neighbors' gardens. Happy Easter to all!

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  9. I live in a wooded environment with deer, wood chucks, squirrels rabbits and assorted other wildlife. Hostas, day lilies, petunias, tulips, irises, etc don't survive. So I gave up.
    Thorny bushes, marigolds,peonies and hyacinths thrive. Oh and crab grass does well.. Raised flower beds with wire screen enclosures save our annuals from "haircuts".
    Adaption with nature is the key to survival.

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    Replies
    1. Jerry ... this is the best advice! The ability to adapt to alternative gardens/yards is the best approach. Our area has been in a 10 year drought so many homeowners in our area are adapting by ripping out our precious and beautiful green grass lawns in favor of rock gardens with drought tolerant plants. Sometimes you just have no choice.

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  10. Despite living in the woods, nothing bothers my hostas. We have snowshoe hares up here. Maybe they have different dietary needs? We had cottontails in Florida. Oddly enough, they usually made their first appearance at or around Easter. So, maybe there is something to that Easter bunny thing! Never saw any with eggs, though.

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  11. We have rabbits and deer, so I apply copious amounts of deer-off to my daylilies. We also have hawks and coyotes, which hunt the rabbits. And black snakes which hunt moles and birds, which is another story for another day. If I crave a pretty container of petunias or dahlias, I keep the pot on the deck.

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  12. Oh dear, Hallie, I had been blaming the deer for eating my hostas! Now I'm thinking they probably weren't alone with that. When my old white cat was alive she liked nothing better than to go out and find herself a half-grown rabbit, bite its head off and leave the rest behind. The 2 cats I have remaining have never been outside and I'd prefer to keep it that way. I hear the coyotes but they aren't really doing much to keep the bunny population down. My grandfather used to hunt rabbits and then presumably ate them. I've never been inclined that way.

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  13. I feel for ya, Hallie. Last year Steve and I put up a super duper, pricey garden fence to keep the hordes of deer out of the garden. With fencing billed as "chewproof". Maybe chewproof for you and me, but the rabbits had it looking like Swiss cheese in no time flat, and just moved themselves in with no invitation.

    My gardening buddy Jeff and I put a two-foot high double layer of hardware cloth and chicken wire around the perimeter, but I am kicking myself for not also adding a horizontal barrier to the little rodents. However, my hairdresser just told me about a fertilizer made from--ick factor--human excrement that keeps both bunnies and deer away. Blood meal and rotten egg/garlic spray works, too, but I'm going to try the fertilizer around the perimeter of the garden. I'll report back.

    Knock wood, but so far the deer are not inclined to jump the 7'+ fence. We will see.

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    1. Karen In Ohio: That's interesting about the human waste fertilizer. I wonder if it is treated (most likely) as I would worry that it could contain harmful bacterial and viral contaminates from the human waste? I would be concerned if it mixed in the soil to grow vegetables.

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    2. I need to do some more research, but she got it at Lowe's, I think, and they would not sell it if it had not been sterilized.

      There are also lots of rabbit-resistant plants and herbs. Oddly enough, I was just reading about it yesterday, since I'm building a new, outside the fence garden.

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  14. What usually gets our hostas is drought. We have a backyard bunny, deep in a woodsy area, who's wisely conservative with appearances thanks to a family of red-tailed hawks living in the trees on the opposite side of what used to be a field across the street.

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  15. Happy Easter! We have bunnies, but they are a delight rather than a problem. Squirrels are much more plentiful than rabbits. I see bunnies occasionally, mostly in the early morning or twilight..My guess is that the coyotes, hawks and eagles keep them in check. One morning a coyote crossed the road carrying breakfast in its mouth. Breakfast could have been bunny...or squirrel..

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  16. Happy Bunny & Peeps Day! Thanks for the wild life tales, All. They remind me of my mother’s hostas and the deer gardeners that tended it. Those hostas thrived all spring and summer, no gluttons among the wildlife. With the first frost, which turns hostas into “rotting seaweed” (appearance and odor), the deer would stop by and eat all the leaves off. Saved Mother and Dad a big piece of fall clean up. Elisabeth

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  17. The only rabbit that I ever spotted on Nome St. was a lop ear who lipperted down the street right after Hurricane Irma.. I think our patrol cat keeps most of the vermin away except for the grasshoppers. Not sure about hostas.. do they grow in Florida? Personally the only rabbit I want to see is of the chocolate variety. May all who celebrate Passover, Easter, or Ramadan during this time
    find happiness and peaceful understanding.

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  18. As much as I like bunnies, I don't like when they eat all my plants. I'm not sure how to discourage them. I no longer put plants out...

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  19. Hank Phillippi RyanApril 9, 2023 at 10:21 AM

    SO MANY rabbits!!And I keep saying that it’s lucky that they are adorable—I know they are munching on the tulips. And yikes, now you have reminded me to check the hosta. Grrr.
    But the squirrels are absolute demons. I took a video of one perched on our back fence, holding a tulip bulb , so brazenly, as if it were an apple! And just nibbling away.
    There’s stuff called rat blood that works—we are off to get some. Grrrrrrr.

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    Replies
    1. Hank, I wonder if poisons such as rat poison, etc can also be deadly to house pets like cats and dogs who get into the garden and might ingest it. We've had some problems with this situation with our daughter's cat.

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    2. Oh, no.... I have no idea..but "rat blood" just smells like rats or predators or something, it's not poisonous.

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  20. Lots of desert bunnies, here, too! I read that marigolds discourage them but judging by my devastated strawberry patch (surrounded by marigolds) a few years ago…no.

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  21. We had a rabbit when I was a kid, which my bro and I found hopping around the neighborhood on (yes this is true) ... Easter morning! He was a neighbors pet and our neighbor was sick of their pet rabbit getting out of their backyard and said we could have him. He was a very large white rabbit (we believed he must have been the real Easter Bunny). My brother and I named him (of course) Peter Rabbit. He loved to eat my mom's chrysanthemums which drove her crazy!

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  22. Happy Easter!

    Is there a petting zoo or something like that ? Or a rabbit sanctuary? In the Berkeley hills, there is an Animal Farm, which is part of the California Parks system.

    Sorry to hear about the rabbits eating your plants. When we had droughts in CA, the deer would eat the plants from my neighbors' gardens.

    When I think of Easter, I think of Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit. I grew up with the concept of Easter Eggs, Bunnies and Chicks. And Chocolate Easter Eggs! Now I know there is a religious aspect to Easter. I also think of pastel colors in Spring dresses for Easter.

    Diana

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  23. Happy Easter! Hope everyone who celebrates has a splendid day!

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  24. Happy Easter, everyone! We do see bunnies here in our front yard--the Eastern Cottontail is the most common, although when we lived a little further to the west we would sometimes see Jackrabbits (actually they are hares.) It's the squirrels that are the problem in our garden. I gave up on tulips years ago as they were only providing a tasty snack. I've just put spring plantings in many of our deck and patio pots--now for the constant battle with darned squirrels. We have a huge old native pecan tree so the squirrels are either burying the pecans or digging them up. I've tried every kind of deterent and nothing seems to work.

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  25. susan Shea here. We have large brown, long-eared hares that only show up at night, does with fawns, the occasional coyote. But the neighbor's black cat, the only critter who can jump over the fence into ny garden is the problem. She poops in the raised vegetable beds!

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  26. sorry-my own cat jumped up onto my lap and joggled my hand as I hit Send!

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  27. Rhys: Happy Easter! We have deer. Lots and lots of deer. 5 or 6 on my hill at any moment. And they eat everything. Even strip the leaves off my lemon trees. And suggestions that don’t involve a gun?

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    1. Oh Rhys: that takes me back. Ed lived in Novato, his back yard was mostly a steep hill. I remember him sharing the on going battles with the gorging herd. I think they tried tobacco juice, but remember this was almost 30 years ago.

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  28. Hares, yes,hawks, deer, elk, and cougars after the elk. Lots of snow. Oh my, LOTS of snow. And no sign of Spring yet.

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  29. Happy Easter everyone! I have no solutions to the bunny/squirrel/deer dilemma. Maybe an outdoor dog head of security?

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    1. Pat, now that wolves have been released back into the wild in parts of Switzerland, smart shepherds have bought Pyrenean Mountain Dogs to guard their flocks of sheep, and it's proving effective. Not sure if the dogs can be trained to guard hostas and tulip bulbs, but you never know!

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  30. Hallie, I'm so sorry that rabbits are eating your hostas, and I'm sad for everyone else losing tulip bulbs, lettuce, and other plants to squirrels, deer, and woodchucks. When my sister lived in rural North Carolina, her battles with deer eating almost everything she planted were epic. When I hear stories like these, I am very happy to grow plants on a balcony. I don't even have to worry about snails up here on the second floor, let alone larger critters. Not that I'm suggesting you all move into apartments, of course! (BTW, in case I get transformed into Anonymous again, this is Kim Hays!)

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  31. We used to have plenty of bunnies, white-cotton tail, here, but since we've put a fence up around most of the backyard and have a dog we let out in it, the rabbits and squirrels have diminished in numbers. I don't put out plants, so I don't have that problem anyway. What I don't like about the squirrels is every so often one will climb an electric pole by our house and short out the transformer. Of course, the squirrel gets friend and is no longer a problem, but its friends and families don't get the message to avoid this.

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