"John Hutchison" wrote in message ...
Hello All,


I've been lurking here for a while, and enjoyed many of the discussions on
here.

Please bear with me if I'm bringing up a subject that seems to reappear
every year, but I've done my searching and can't find any suitable answers
for my particular problem.

I've moved into a new housing estate last February, and I'm slowly working
my way towards getting the garden into shape, taking it a little at a time
as I'm new to gardening. At the front, I have a reasonable piece of turf,
with two borders - one at the furthest end of the garden from the house, and
the other beneath the living room window.

The border furthest from the house is constantly being used as a walk-in
restaurant by the local rabbit population, and I'm nearly driven to despair
by the tenacity of the little beggers. I have seen them destroy two
heathers, a couple of grasses (which were meant as sacrificial offerings in
any case), some lithodora, and some tritellia (sp?). There is also a dwarf
juniper that is VERY spiky and a small conifer (can't remember the exact
variety right now). Now that most of the readily edible material is gone,
the rabbits are starting to nip at the juniper and the conifer. When they
find that the shrubbery is not to their liking, they seem to decide that the
roots might be tastier, and take a little dig and nip there. Luckily, they
have not decided to gnaw at the bark of the Prunus 'Spire' that lives in the
same bed, but I fear it is only a matter of time...

The problem is that like most new estates, I am prevented from placing any
reasonable height of fencing to keep them away. I can't use ultrasound
devices as they would upset my two cats (and no, the cats aren't much help
as they were raised in a city flat and are just about the same size as the
rabbits!). Short of using the wonder spray (lead shot), is there anything
else I could be doing to discourage my little visitors?

I do have some other plants available that they may find distasteful,
however making a usable display out of them is another matter. I have a few
gentianas, a couple of linums, some lemon thyme, some crocosmia 'lucifer',
Rhus lacti-something or other (I think it's latin for milky sap?), scabiosa,
and lavenders (english and french). They are all either sitting on the back
patio waiting for a home, or in other parts of the garden. Are there any of
these that are known to be rabbit proof?

Thanks in advance,

We keep rabbits out of new planting by using very low fences of wire netting. 18 inches high is sufficient you need 1
inch mesh, baby bunnies can get through 2 inch mesh. You can grow dwarf shrubs like lavender, callunas, cistus etc
through a fence like that to make it virtually invisible. You can use spiral rabbit guards on anything with a single
stem like your prunus.
Another trick we've used is wire or plastic mesh guard around individual shrubs - the shrub eventually grows through it
by which time the plant is big enough to fend for itself and the mesh can be cut away. This works especially well with
things that make a bit of a thicket like berberis or roses.

Rod