Five Ways to Banish Little Bunny Foo Foo From Your Garden

The average Taos gardener has long since stopped viewing rabbits as cute little critters with fluffy butts, and now sees them as destructive oversized rodent pests. While the determined gardener experiences success by building a veritable fortress of rabbit-proof fences around their garden with accents of chicken wire and high voltage, others are still searching for a more peaceful and aesthetic solution to these pesky vegetarian thieves. YART understands this dilemma and brings you the following five tips:

1. Repel Them

Unfortunately neither bad pick-up lines nor crude jokes have any effect on rabbits. Instead, plant some naturally repellent plants in and around the rabbits' favorite victims. Rabbits avoid foxglove (Digitalis) and monkshood (Aconitum) because they're poisonous. Other plants simply smell gross to rabbits or repel them for other reasons; a good bet is to plant some Mexican marigolds, dusty miller, garlic, onions, lavender, and especially catnip! And if some four-legged furballs are on your side, remember that the smell of a garden frequented by a catnip-craving cat will also smell quite foul and fearsome to Bugs Bunny and company.

2. Startle Them

Fill 1-gallon (4-l) glass bottles with water and set them among your plants. Sunlight bouncing off the glass will startle the bunnies and send them fleeing. Other reflective YART yard art may do the trick as well.

3. Expose Them

No, don't shave their fluffy tail or open their tiny trench coats. Instead, remove brush and keep grasses low so those timid rabbits don't have anywhere to hide.

4. Scare Them

Ferrets are skilled rabbit-chasers, and if your request to borrow a weasel draws strange looks, see how they react when you beg for ferret poop instead. Hopefully a pet shop or ferret-owning friend will stop laughing long enough to help you out and you can scatter the droppings around your plants. If you have a menagerie that includes indoor cats, keep in mind that soiled cat litter from a cat that has killed and eaten wild animals is one of the best organic rabbit repellents around. If the smell isn't a nuisance to you, spread the dirty cat litter, while still fresh, around your garden once a week.

5. Attract Them

Attract them away from the garden, that is. Plant a patch of clover or alfalfa away from your main garden to divert the rabbits' attention and satisfy their voracious appetites. If you can't beat them, feed them the stuff you don't want.

So next time these long-toothes thieves encroach on your territory, pull out thsi tip-list and get to work. Or get a head start and begin accumulating rabbit repellants before spring sneaks up on you again.