Rabbits are cute animals unless they nibble veggies, flowers, and edible crops in your garden. They prefer young shoots of carrots, lettuce, broccoli, beans, etc. These critters might be wiping out the whole garden crops overnight.

Unfortunately, bunnies or rabbits cut the crops often which is really a loss for the gardeners or farmers. So, a garden barrier for rabbits (made of wood or metal) is essential to protect your plants. There are different ways to keep rabbits away without harming them.

Here we’ll share some of the prominent methods on how to keep rabbits out of your garden. Let’s read on!

What are The Signs of Rabbit Activity in My Garden or Flower Bed?

If you see the rabbits or bunnies cut short the green foliage, flora, stem, etc. But, how do you understand that are there rabbits if you don’t see the culprits?

Check the cutting edge of the plants. Bunnies or rabbits have sharp teeth so they chop off the plants cleanly and precisely that looks like someone trims plants with hand shears. They may also leave pellets and tracks after pilfering the homegrown veggies or plants.

But other pests or insects usually leave rough edges and torn leaves. So, when you are sure that rabbits visit the garden and doing harm to the plants, it’s important to take immediate action to protect the garden from eating the plants.

How to Keep Rabbits out of Your Garden

Actually, there are different ways to make a garden rabbit-proof. Some methods require purchasing garden fencing to protect your garden against rabbits whereas several methods are natural that you can do to keep the garden protected from rabbits and bunnies. So, let’s know how do I rabbit-proof my garden.

1. Fencing or Garden Barrier for Rabbits

Rabbits are small critters so you may think it’s very easy to get rid of rabbits’ problems by making a low-height fence. But this is not true practically.

Rabbits are wily creatures, who may squeeze their body to go through a small gap, chew nibble through the plastic mesh, dig the soil to go under the fence, or jump over a low-height fence. So, you should build a good fence that can stop rabbits to enter the garden rightly.

Firstly, consider the height of the barrier and the size of the fence hole. The rabbit barrier for plants should be more than 2 feet high so bunnies or rabbits can’t jump over them. But for a safer option go for 3 to 4 feet high barriers. When talking about wire mesh hole size, consider 1 inch or smaller hole net to stop rabbits to enter your garden.

Choose the wire or metal fencing so rabbits can’t chew them. Another important thing is digging holes and burying the fencing 2 to 5 inches under the ground, this will prevent rabbits to go inside the garden even though they dig holes. To do that you can place the fencing in an L-shape.

The gate of the fence is a potential place from where rabbits may enter the garden stealthily. So, leave no gap in the door borders. If necessary, overlap the wire in the gate edges or use several lines of electric wire fencing at the gate edges.

What can you put around your garden to keep rabbits out? Some of the popular rabbit fencing types are metal fence panels (strong type that also works as dog barrier), cedar garden fence panels, white vinyl fences, poultry fencing, coated poultry fencing, welded fence wire, coated welded fence wire, etc.

2. Netting or Row Covers

Although wire mesh netting is more effective, still you can use plastic netting to protect the garden bed from rabbits. This method is cheaper and mainly used for raised garden beds as the net is easy to make a rectangular, circular, or cylinder shape. But you can use a wire mesh fence for raised bed too.

For wooden garden beds, plastic netting is used often. But keep in mind, rabbits may chew the netting and could damage them and there are some chances that bunnies may try to squeeze their body to pass from the hole or dig holes to get in the garden.

3. Plant Cages to Protect from Rabbits

Another option is to build DIY plant cages to protect from rabbits. In this case, you can add a cage to an individual plant or several plants. This method works best for small plants.

For shrubs and plants, protecting the trunk is important. You can purchase the pre-assembled expandable trunk protector depending upon the tree size. Alternatively, you can make it with your own choice of materials.

4. Habitat Modification

Have, you wondered, how to keep rabbits out of garden naturally or without harming them? Modifying the habitat in your garden will be an ideal way to do that.

Rabbits are prey animals and if your garden has ample food or hiding spots, they will spend more time here and munching there. Some places where rabbits may hide are bushy shrubs, tall grasses, piled brushes, rocks, crawl spaces under, etc.

It’s important to clear off the places like thicket places, tall brushes, and so on. Otherwise, rabbits will consider these places as safe places to hide from predators.

5. Scents and Repellents as Rabbit Barrier

If you look for a way how to keep rabbits out of garden without a fence, the scent method will be the right way. The strong smell works greatly to deter rabbits. This happens due to several reasons-

Due to the strong scent, rabbits may think of approaching predators so they want to leave the potentially risky spots. Scent works as a mimic of the predators here.

Whether you can buy a rabbit repellant spray or make it at home. Fancy sprays are available at the local store or in an online shop like Amazon.

Some of the sprays come in granular form that needs to be sprayed in the garden bed regularly to keep rabbits away from the garden which might be quite tiresome. But several sprays last longer that needn’t be frequently applied.

However, when rabbits will be accustomed to a specific scent, they won’t consider it a threat. So, you can alternate different scents to get the benefit.

If you want to make rabbit repellant at home you can use grating bar soap. Some gardeners keep it near the plants which they want to protect from rabbits. Hot chilies and garlic also do the same thing. You can spray the blended garlic, chili, and water or sprinkle the chili and garlic powder around the garden.

Several other scents that may keep away the rabbits are urine, blood meal, droppings, and even the hair of the predators. So, if you have pet animals like cats and dogs their smell will be also a threat to the rabbits.

6. Scare Tactics

Some gardeners keep the decoy predators in the garden to scare the rabbits. A plastic snake or ceramic owl is a good option in this regard. But change the position of the decoy often to threaten the bunnies.

If this won’t work, you may also use your cat or dog to frighten the rabbits. When the pets go indoors, the scent will even scare the rabbits.

There are also several other rabbit repellents like ultrasonic repellent devices, spinning pinwheels, motion-activated sprinklers, etc.

7. Rabbit Repellent Plants

Rabbits don’t like all plants equally. There is a list of plants that are less likely to the rabbits and even some of them might work as rabbit repellants. But rabbits prefer most edible plants that humans like too thus the list is quite short.

Generally, rabbits are less attracted by strong scent plants, thorny branches, milky sap leaves, or thick fuzzy. Some of these plants are garlic, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, artichokes asparagus, and rhubarb. So, these plants and veggies will be relatively safe from bunnies.

Currants, thorny cane fruits, and gooseberries are also some less favored items by rabbits. Scented herbs like rosemary, sage, mint, lavender, tarragon, and oregano will also be safe from bunnies.

There are also some landscaping and ornamental plants that rabbits don’t show much interest such as boxwood, agave, daylily, columbine, astilbe, geranium, euphorbia, holly, yucca daffodil, yew, lamb’s ear, cotoneaster, foxglove, iris, spirea, and marigold.

However, keep an eye on these plants too as not all rabbits’ tastes are the same, they might choose them for breakfast or dinner.

8. Predators

Rabbits and bunnies are low-class animals in the food chain. There are many animals in the top to rabbits in the food chain that may eat the rabbits. Some of the potential predators of rabbits are foxes, owls, raccoons, eagles, hawks, etc.

Cats and dogs are also predators of the bunnies. These animals might help to control the population of rabbits.

9. Trapping as Garden Barrier for Rabbits

If any other option doesn’t work, trapping will be the ultimate way to frighten and control the rabbits from cutting your favorite plants. Before that, check the local laws of your area to be sure is it okay to catch rabbits by trapping.

Relocating the rabbit to another safe place is a good idea. But this is not so easy it requires lots of effort. However, some gardeners don’t like relocating rabbits as they are part of the environment and they believe that the rabbit population just needs to be controlled.

10. Controlling Rabbit Population

In case you want to control the rabbit population, it’s recommended to check your state rules about that. If it’s allowed to do, you can proceed on, otherwise, try another natural and humane way.

Rabbit controlling is really difficult even if they are in a small group. However, there are a few ways to control these animals in a humane way.

Shooting by a skilled shooter is a good option but it’s labor-intensive and time-consuming. Cage trapping followed by killing rabbits is another way to control the rabbit population. But you should hire a competent person who has trained and experienced in this field.

Baiting with pindone, 1080 baits, and even applying poisons are some widely used ways to kill rabbits humanely.

Frequently Asked Questions on Rabbit Barrier

What plants do rabbits eat?

Rabbits eat plants, vegetables, herbs and flowers, and so on. Some of the plants that attract rabbits most are carrot tops, beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, parsley, etc. Flowers that they like to munch on include pansies, marigolds, gazanias, and petunias.

Do marigolds keep rabbits away?

No, marigolds don’t deter rabbits rather they occasionally nibble these flower plants.

Do coffee grounds repel rabbits?

Rabbits and bunnies don’t like the scent of coffee grounds. So, coffee can be considered a rabbits repellent plant.

Do noises deter rabbits?

Yes, sound especially ultrasonic sound is a good way to defer rabbits.

Conclusion on Garden Barrier for Rabbits

Rabbits may damage your garden and plants extremely which we never expect. So, a garden barrier for rabbits is essential to protect the garden from these culprits. And there are different ways to do that like installing rabbit-proof fencing, poultry netting, using scent as a deterrent, allowing predators to visit the garden, etc.

By now, you know how to keep rabbits out of your garden. So, build a suitable barrier or fencing for rabbits or use any technique that will keep rabbits away from the garden without harming them like a weed barrier.

A shor video on building a rabbit-proof garden barrier: