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Non-Tasty Garden Plants

Jon Bon

New Kit
Towards the end of last year, we adopted two rescue rabbits. We erected a shed in the garden to house their hutch to keep them snug and warm at night and we sealed the garden so that they can have the run of the place in the daytime. Unfortunately, the little darlings have repaid our kindness by eating us out of all but two of the plants we put down last summer!

Please can anyone suggest any non-tasty plants or shrubs that won't end up on their snack menu? Thanks.
 
Probably the best thing to do is to find a way to block them off, like putting them in large, heavy pots, and putting them up off the floor so that the bunnies can't get to them.
 
yesss - me too!

What a good idea. A list of non-toxic but non-tasty shrubs and plants. Our rabbit garden is pretty bare apart from what they don't like and what they can't reach.

They don't like our conifers. Not sure what they are, but they are left alone. That's good, because they provide shade and shelter - (we provide a proper wooden shelter, of course, filled with hay, but they never use it).

They nibble pathetically at a compact ivy, but only a bit, so that is growing happily enough on a low wall.

There's a clump of evergreen low shrubs that get left alone too, that they like to snuggle under, but again I'm not sure what they are.

There's a tub with a small weeping willow in it. They eat as far up as they can reach, so it looks like a bad hair day, but is still alive.

They don't seem to eat the camellia.

They LOVE magnolia, flowers and leaves, but most is way beyond reach - they just get what drops off.

I'd love to know what I can safely plant that will be allowed to look nice!
 
I think that the short answer is there aren't any plants which bunnies won't touch. Bunnies don't tend to naturally know what they can safely eat so they will eat everything or atleast taste everything.

I'd make a secure area with no plants that you don't want nibbled.

Most evergreen shrubs are either toxic or poisonous to buns (but can depend on quantity consumed). I'd not risk access to them personally.

All bulbous plants are toxic. Daffs, tulips, crocus etc.

Herbs and roses are firm favourites with our lot. Also you can allow them to nibble on cob nut/hazel, willow, apple and pear (BUT NOT cherry).
 
You could try (( This Product )) which is supposed to make plants non-tasty. I emailed one of the sellers about it and asked if it was safe and was told it was a natural product that was specifically designed to cause no harm to any animals or insects. :)
 
Our old bunnies have free range and have pretty much eaten everything! I have opted for loads of hanging baskets this year which look nice.
 
Grasses are good. Louie has a nibble on them but they grow fast so he never completely eats the lot :D
 
Our last garden had a pretty formidable lavender bush. Rabbits can eat but our lot didn't seem that bothered unless we hand fed it them :lol: The lavender seemed to survive everything :D As mentioned above our willow tree survived them eating the base, as did our blossom tree and our maple tree now :wave:
 
No buns I have ever had have ever eaten anything from our two Pieris shrubs we have in the garden. Maybe you could try those, they are quite pretty shrubs and come in several varieties I have 2 different sorts. They have pretty white flowers and the leaves start off red and then turn green, hope this helps :wave:
 
is that the thorny stuff?

Hmmm. I think it's thorny. Our two would soon learn that when they didn't want to be caught to go to bed for the night they could get iunder a thorny bush! It's gonna be a chanllenge, this gardening around buns!
 
The only think my lot dont eat is my lavender bush. I have all my plants in pots and fence them off when bunnies are out.
 
Box isn't safe as such but it's not toxic either and buns leave it alone - well in my experience anyway and my buns will eat anything they can get their paws on - hence our borders are all fenced off. So you could think about some box bushes/hedging.

Bay trees are very safe and buns don't tend to eat these either.
Rosemary is only ever eaten as a last resort...e.g. winter! When nothing else is around. Lavender too, as mentioned above, is a bunny favourite but they don't go below the new growth usually so leave the woody stems - and this helps the lavender regenerate.

Nepeta all varieties is safe and buns tend to give it a wide berth, but if you have a cat or cats nearby you might end up with a few extra! (It's cat mint)

A large cardoon plant is tough - too tough for bunny to eat and safe - can make a nice feature in a garden. I grew mine from seed!

Willow, hazel - both can be used structurally in the garden. Willow sticks can be bought and just sunk into the ground to grow. A Mallow tree - has a huge thick stem when it grows and it lasts a couple of years as long as you don't get a big frost. My dad's mallow tree lasted about 5-6 years and was huge.

We have a large myrtle bush that our buns don't touch, I don't know how safe it is but as long as I keep it as a standard shape and trim off outgrowings below 2ft (bunny tiptoe height) they leave well alone and it is evergreen. Funnily enough they also leave the laurel bush alone and laurel is very toxic, it drops one or two leaves a year being evergreen and again we keep it trimmed to above 2ft but they don't touch the leaves on the lawn (thankfully). The leaves they DO eat are the spotted laurel but this isn't a true laurel anyway.

For herbs like thyme and marjoram etc you could make a wire cage to sit over them and then the buns can happily trim off what grows through the cage but the plant itself will be undamaged and you can lift off the cage to pick it if you want to use it.
However, every bun is different as to instinct of toxic plants and what they will and won't eat. It is always best to use caution in the garden and fence off or dig up anything you can't identify. :)
 
wow

That was really useful. Thanks.

I think I shall copy off all the entries and save it into a document, because gardening well around bunnies is a challenge.

Lucky for me I have more garden that the buns don't have access to, so toxic stuff and things we want to eat ourselves can go in there. But there's still the task of planting the rabbit garden so it doesn't look so bare. I'll definitely try out some of those ideas, though, and post the results on here.

Anyone else any ideas or experiences?
 
fat rabbit balanced on a pot

My son tells me that Buffy now climbs up into the plant pot to nibble higher off the standard willow planted in it. He says it is hilarious to watch as the pot teeters with a fat bun on it (don't worry - it isn't a heavy pot). I'll catch a photo if she's daft enough to let me...
 
I'm starting a garden collection of Mexican Orange Blossom because that's about all the bunnies don't eat! Oh, and the Pieris shrubs as well - they leave those alone. Everything else is either fenced off or eaten!
 
rabbit friendly query

I brought this up to the front in the hope it helps. Dunno about shade loving though.
 
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