On 13/03/2015 7:54 AM, Another John wrote:
OK OK I know the most popular answer will be: "You can't" but
nonetheless: how do we control rabbit ingress?

My new employer has about an acre of garden, in which we're about to
create a new perennial border. The garden is out in the country, and is
bordered on one side by the road and the old (gappy) hedge, and on the
other sides by a standard post and rail fence. Across the fence is a big
field (10 acres?) which occasionally has a few sheep in, but is mainly
used for hay (I think).

Rabbits aren't a big pest yet in this garden, but they are around. Is it
possible to dissuade them?

I was thinking of nailing chicken wire around the entire perimeter. I
know that they burrow, but I figured maybe they only do that when
there's a vegetable garden to be got at.

Chicken wire works well, doesn't need to be very high but does need to
be buried or held fast to some form of solid barrier to be effective.

I use chicken wire that is only 1 ft/30 cm tall around some of my veg
beds and that butts up to old timber railway sleepers and it is held in
place with bamboo stakes shoved deep into the soil every 9 inches or so
right round the internal edge of the wire. That height is enough to keep
them out of my veg beds.

Rabbits also do not like blood and bone meal but that is only temporary.

The little stinkers will have a go at anything green. I've just been
out inspecting my bulbs coming up and they have nibbled at my Cuban
lillies and taken the tops out of many of my succulents and would have
eaten all of my dahlias to the roots if I hadn't surrounded them with
cages. They don't seem to like Peonies or irises.

1080 poison is very effective but you have to feed them the unbaited
carrots for a while to get them feeding on it and then you hit the
carrots with the poison. We don't using 1080 though because it's deadly
to mammals such as dogs. A .22 also works well. Ripping their burrows
with a deep ripper on a tractor also works and so does fumigating their
burrows by shoving a hose onto the end of an exhaust pipe of a leaded
petrol car and shoving the end down the burrow and then closing over all
holes with dirt and leaving the car running for a while. These days
that means you have to find an old car where lead is added to modern fuel.