It is gray or brownish, with a short tail and big ears. Its fondness for flowers, vegetables, bark, and bulbs often results in pruned peppers and clipped cosmos.Įven though its nicknames are adorable (among them bunny, bunny rabbit, and cottontail), and you’ll probably want to befriend it once you see its cute ears, the eastern cottontail can be a bothersome pest. Ranging from Boston to Boulder and south into Mexico, this bunny-about-town is rarely found in forests, preferring instead brushy fence rows, field edges, brush piles, and-you guessed it-landscaped backyards. Of the nine species of North American cottontail rabbits, it’s the eastern cottontail ( Sylvilagus floridanus) that is our most abundant and annoying. Then protect the plants that you and the bunnies really love, and don’t worry about the rest.

You can check our tips for keeping your plants safe from rabbits, but try to regard rabbits as Beatrix Potter did-part of a peaceful, pastoral landscape. Nibbling your petunias is therefore not a carefree picnic but a danger-fraught mission. However, if your neighborhood bunny can squeeze through a hole in your garden fence, it will find time to be able to munch in safety. Your backyard bunny’s primary concern is to eat without being eaten, a difficult task given that rabbits are relished by more than two dozen species of predators.

That’s only about eight days more than it takes a chicken egg to hatch! The first litter appears in March in the north, year-round elsewhere. They can produce up to three litters of six babies each, per year in the north, and up to six litters of three babies each, per year in the south. Rabbits also have an extremely high reproductive potential, which is why keeping them around might quickly cause a total garden infestation. In fact, a menu of rabbit favorites is so ridiculously long that it’s easier to list the few plants they don’t enjoy. This long-eared animal possesses a voracious appetite for all kinds of fresh vegetation-woody plants, perennials, annuals, vegetables, and berries. Why Would You Keep Rabbits Away?Īnyone who tills the soil regards the rabbit as more than just a cute threat to the carrot patch. Aside from fencing, there are a number of old-time remedies and other solutions that will keep them out of the garden patch! Plus, see a list of plants that rabbits tend to ignore. Got rabbits? These small mammals can do a number on young plants, so prevention is paramount.

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