Rabbits vs the Landlord’s Garden

I have two rabbits in a rented house with a garden, and before moving in we made sure to secure the landlord’s permission for the rabbits outside. They are fully aware and happy with them being there, *however* I am concerned about my deposit and the amount of damage they’ve done to the garden. We are moving out in August (and taking the rabbits with us of course.)

The Passion flower vine that covered two walls of the garden (supported by two trellises) has been chewed to the core by the rabbits before I realised they could fit their heads through the fence I put around it. Slowly the entire vine is wilting because it all leads back to one gnawed root. I am very concerned about my deposit if the landlord spots this and I have spent £50 on different plants to drape on the trellis instead. (All of these are in hanging pots so that they don’t reach the ground, although I’m not sure how much weight the trellis can take.)

I’m wondering whether to remove the passion vine now, and put it down to the -7 degrees frost we had this year, and in the meantime get started growing new plants so they can take over the trellis. If the landlord inspects the plant the cause of the damage will be very obvious. However, if it’s not going to die 100%, I want to try and plant things around the base before we move out, to cover up the source of the problem, and just say the plant died off a bit during winter.

There are many other signs of rabbit gnawing in the garden but it was not well-maintained when we moved in (rusty furniture, overgrown weeds, etc) so I’m hoping they’re not too precious about it.

Any advice on how to approach this situation? How much of the deposit is likely to depend on chewed parts of the garden? What’s the best way to start covering up chewed trees and roots?

Have you googled Passion Fruit to see if it is ok for Rabbits to eat?

haha, when i saw the thread title i thought there's only gonna be 1 winner and it won't be the landlord's garden.
yes deffo, it was the frost that killed the passion flower plant :thumb:

I reckon the passion tree will come back though? Ahh what a pain. I've had similar stresses with rented property. Ultimately the deposit is against whatever damage might be caused - if they wanted they could take it all for one thing - say a nice carpet was entirely trashed, but it is supposed to be proportionate & measured. Hopefully it won't come to that & they couldn't legitimately charge that for one vine, no matter how spectacular.

Good luck - I hope your bunnies behave themselves over summer

Hey there, I'm also a renter so I feel your pain :wave:

Landlords worth their salt who let tenants have pets are becoming such a rarity now, it can take an awful lot of searching. When you find one I personally feel it's important to be fair to them. My advice would simply be honest about it, since they they were good to let you have pets on the property. If the damage has been caused by pets, that's part of what the deposit is for and unfortunately does come down to the responsibility of the renter, as it should in my opinion.

There's also the issue that if you claim it was from the hard winter, they may have had the passion winter over for years no issue, and possibly know that this isn't the truth. They may or may not be able to prove it, and in the latter case if they lose out as a result, you may find that for the next tenants they simply don't bother allowing them to have pets to save themself enduring extra costs due to pets on the property, or simply to avoid hassle, which is such a shame for the next person to rent.

I wouldn't worry too much, passion flowers are not expensive to buy (we bought a very small one a few weeks ago for £3) although I appreciate if it was an established one it will cost a bit more. They may also, simply not be bothered! As Joey & Boo says it's supposed to be proportionate, and I wouldn't think they would ever take even a large part of deposit for a plant that is a relatively common.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do. Welcome to the forum :wave:

Died off over winter, doesn't matter how long it's been there, random **** can just happen to plants [emoji38]

I agree with JessBun.

I would just replace the passion flower, plant it alongside the old one - or just give them a ring, say I'm really sorry but I think the rabbits might have damaged the passion flower, would you like me to replace it? They might just say not to bother, but they aren't expensive so I'd probably just replace it.

ETA sorry there were a lot of "just"s in that!!:lol:

Passion flower plants are available at the moment quite cheaply from places like B&M and The Range. They currently have the usual packaged spring plants in. Less than £5?
If they don't have passion flowers locally, they may have other climbing plants that you could replace it with. The frost this year has killed off quite a lot of normally hardy plants.

Hello :wave: Thank you for the replies! I’ll respond in order:

Tonibun: I found a post on this forum which said that other members have had rabbits eat the vine without suffering ill effects. Mine seem to have been fine so far and went in for their jabs and checkup since they’ve gnawed the plant.

I hope they see the passion vine proportionately within the garden as a whole! I feel like my impact on the garden has been net positive (removing weeds, growing grass instead, buying more plants) so hopefully that will work in my favour.

JessBun: I agree, although in this case the landlord has really messed us around (hence why we’re terminating the contract in August and getting out) so I feel less generous than I might otherwise. We’re still waiting on repairs to the house we’ve asked for since before Christmas.

It’s been the coldest winter in 10 years which might work in our favour, but I agree that it might be best to ‘own up’ now and ask exactly how we can compensate. For example, I did buy the largest passion vines I can from Amazon (which were only 30cm high) but these will take years to grow, so they might not consider it a fair trade.

Dollyanna: Yes perhaps this is the way to go. I still have four months to go where I can get some things established in the garden - I’m only worried if I mention this it will draw a lot of attention to the rabbits and the landlord will revoke permission to keep pets here. (We unfortunately do have a break clause which they can activate, so I’d rather they knew in August than found out now and asked us to move us or the rabbits out.)

I would think a garden would be far less worry to a landlord than a house! Honestly I wouldn't worry about this.
They're far more likely to be more worried about the house
I rent as well
And people say that with the tenant deposit scheme that's in place now they're more likely on your side in these things.
How long have you lived there?

dollyanna said:

I would just replace the passion flower, plant it alongside the old one - or just give them a ring, say I'm really sorry but I think the rabbits might have damaged the passion flower, would you like me to replace it? They might just say not to bother, but they aren't expensive so I'd probably just replace it.

ETA sorry there were a lot of "just"s in that!!:lol:

Click to expand...

:thumb::thumb:

bumblicious said:

I would think a garden would be far less worry to a landlord than a house! Honestly I wouldn't worry about this.
They're far more likely to be more worried about the house
I rent as well
And people say that with the tenant deposit scheme that's in place now they're more likely on your side in these things.
How long have you lived there?

Click to expand...

:thumb:

dollyanna said:

I would just replace the passion flower, plant it alongside the old one - or just give them a ring, say I'm really sorry but I think the rabbits might have damaged the passion flower, would you like me to replace it? They might just say not to bother, but they aren't expensive so I'd probably just replace it.

ETA sorry there were a lot of "just"s in that!!:lol:

Click to expand...

:thumb:

Thank you for the responses! I think I have overthought the significance of this one vine but it is one of two alive plants in the garden (a cherry tree being in the other one.)

Will get my gardening gloves on and try to make another one grow. Next time I talk to the landlord I will mention it candidly and see how they react.

I’ve only been in the property since last August (was meant to be a few years but definitely terminating this August instead.)

Just plant it and say it died off over winter so you've replaced it for them

I started with rabbits at the last apartment I rented before I bought my house, I had them there for about 3 years. They are great diggers. After 3 years the garden was an Indiana Jones Style Pitfall Theme Park, sometimes when walking over the lawn one leg vanished to the knee into the ground. When moving out it took me half a day to open up all the tunnels and fill them in. You've seen the movie "The Money Pit"? Then you have an idea what that garden looked like.

Be happy, it always could be worse

Preitler said:

I started with rabbits at the last apartment I rented before I bought my house, I had them there for about 3 years. They are great diggers. After 3 years the garden was an Indiana Jones Style Pitfall Theme Park, sometimes when walking over the lawn one leg vanished to the knee into the ground. When moving out it took me half a day to open up all the tunnels and fill them in. You've seen the movie "The Money Pit"? Then you have an idea what that garden looked like.

Be happy, it always could be worse

Click to expand...

This made me laugh, yes I remember that film well :lol: naughty bunnies :lol: