Speaker 1: Broadcasting from spring Like Studio A here at proven winner's
color Choice Shrubs. It's The Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy,
Hervella me, Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson.
Well hop to it. It's spring. Don't look now, but
somebody's eating your prized plants. I hear from people. If
nature isn't eating your garden, then your garden isn't part
of nature.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but to me, it's like saying you're doing the
best you can. It's nice to say, but it doesn't help.
I mean, let's be honest about this. All these little
critters are cute until they take something out of your garden. Rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, fawns,
and rabbits are herbivores and true to their nature, they
consume a large number of plants. I think about rabbits
in the landscape in the garden, Stacey, I think about
the three bees brush. If you have brush around, odds
are they're going to nest near your gardens, so you
have to take action on brush piles. Babies they're so cute,
they're adorable, and there's lots of them, lots and lots
of babies, and of course rabbits. I've heard statistics that
rabbits have something like an eighty percent predation.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh, that makes sense. It's going to be, you know,
corresponding to the number of young they have. The more
young something has, the more likely it is to be
you know, preyed upon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have so many predators. And then the third
bee would be beans. If you want to put out
a welcome matt for rabbits, just plant some beans. I'm
just amazed when I plant beans how it just draws them.
And rabbits love bean plants because the young, tender leave,
shoots and sprouts are highly palatable, easy to chew, packed
with nutrients, their young growth often emerging in spring. It's
kind of like a sweet, succulent snack. They graze on it.
I hope it gives them gas.
Speaker 2: But Rick, now, I thought your three bees were going
to be bunny bun bun and bunny rabbits, And I
have to say I'm a little disappointed at the moment.
But as for the last point, yeah, they will eat
any young plant. Yes, you know, especially in the vegetable garden.
Anything that you like to eat. Chances are they very
much like to eat as well, So yeah, that's beans
might be a favorite. But anything in the veg garden
is going to definitely need to be protected from rabbits.
Speaker 1: You bet well, You may ask, do I have a
rabbit problem? Rabbits are crepuscular, which means they operate in twilight.
They're most active during dawn and dusk. So if you
actually haven't caught them or seen them in the act
of destroying your landscape or your garden, here's some signs
you've spotted pea sized droppings. I call them cocoa puffs
or bunny berries. Plants look like they've been trimmed with
pruners rather than nibbled on. They've got quite a set
of upper and lower chompers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when they do damage a plant, it's very distinctive.
It's like as if someone had taken a pair of
pruners and just cut at an angle, and the angles
always the same. It's like a thumbprint or something that
they leave across.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, it really is. If young tender plants have disappeared,
or you find tufts of hair or spots where it
looks like a small animal's been digging, maybe even drip
lines or some hoses have been chewed on. And then
of course as we come out of winter in areas
where we get a lot of snow, we'll see gnawing
on the bark of trees. Trees can be girdled and destroyed,
so spring can be a problem. Tender vegetation after winter,
and rabbits are attracted to lush vegetation, a reliable, high
moisture food source and of course necessary cover for protection.
So I guess you know, some of the things that
we've got to take a look at and in dealing
with them is the habits of rabbits. You have to
think like an ant. You've got to be almost like
Bill Murray in Caddyshack, for example, for people who have
house rabbits. Many people do have rabbits as pets. I
understand there's a three three three rule. Three days for
the rabbit to feel safe decompression, three weeks to settle
into a routine, and three months to build trust and
show their true personality bonding. So in the yard and
in the garden, if those things don't exist in their jittery,
it may help with rabbit control.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, just thinking about this because I did have a
pet rabbit. He was just the sweetest, most delightful thing.
Learned a lot about rabbits from having a pet rabbit,
and yeah, he sometimes they can be very nervous, but
he made himself right at home in our little apartment
and uh just lived like a king for all of
his years. So I definitely know when they feel safe,
they feel, you know, virtually no fear. They never truly
lose their predation instinct, knowing that they could be preyed
upon it any minute. So they can be easily spooked,
but once they start to trust you, And I think
I'm going to talk a lot more about this in
plants on tip. Okay, good, but I think, yeah, if
they if they feel mostly safe in your yard, then
they're going to be more prevalent in your yard.
Speaker 1: Well. I never had a pet bunny, but I have
read Beatrix Potter's The Tail of Peter Rabbit, and I
know a picket fence isn't going to work in my landscape.
I use chicken wire. Make sure to sink the chicken
wire into the soil in a surrounding fence, because I
think when it comes to rabbits, probably some sort of
physical barrier is the best deterrent, and I think one
of the things you got to do is walk your
property and look for a smooz. Now a smooze, isn't
you know where you're smoothing a client that's smoozing, Yeah, schmoozing,
whereas this is s m e uses.
Speaker 2: From you here on the gardening simplified.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's an habitual hole or a gap through
at the base of a hedge or a fence. And
for people who trap them, they look for these smoozes.
But you can do the same. Those gaps are crucial
for the movement of wildlife through landscapes and are more
or less natural tunnels. Of course, dogs will frequent them also,
and if you have a dog or a cat, that's
a natural bunny or rabbit deterrent also, well.
Speaker 2: You know, I think, and we'll talk again more about
the subplants on trial. One of the things that I've
noticed a lot about rabbits and advice for dealing with rabbits,
is that they make a lot of assumptions. Now there,
I have a smooth in my yard going from my
neighbor's yard into ours, So they're very happy rabbits that
live between our two properties. And I have a number
of neighbors who I will mostly keep my opinion to myself.
Here have outdoor cats that are frequent in my yard.
I mean I see the cats all the time. Walking
through my yard does not deter those rabbits an inch.
They are just as happy as could be. So I
guess it depends on you know, the frequency of the visits,
it's exactly, and the animals themselves. But you know, three
or four cats that frequently come through our yard has
not deterred the numerous rabbits that have taken up residents,
so you know.
Speaker 1: And it brings up a good point. There are so
many things we can talk about in the show. For example,
if you have a neighbor who has lots of clover
in their yard, rabbits love clover and it will attract
them to the area. Some people recommend using clover as
a decoy so they leave your garden alone. I don't agree.
Doesn't work. I would not recommend you.
Speaker 2: We all know, right, you cannot just give a dog
as much food as possible. It will eat until it's sick.
And same with animals. They never know day to day
if they're going to be in a survival situation, so
they're not going to be like, ah, shoot, I just
had my fill of clover. Guess I won't go bother
anything else in the guards. They're just going to be like, hm,
what else is around here? If there's this delicious clover?
Speaker 1: I agree with you, and clover is like ice cream
to rabbits. The thing that drives me crazy. And that's
why I protect trees infall and rap trees young trees
is because rabbits can do significant damage to young trees.
And so in October November, as we head into winter,
super important to protect your young trees. And with that,
this week I wrote a girdled limb rick in honor
of our rabbit friends. Spring is here. It's thawing, a
conclusion I am drawing in winter, I'm inside, comfy, but
now I'm outside grumpy. The rabbits have been gnawing, but
they're fuzzy in They're adorable. Retribution would be deplorable. Can't
we just get along? I know it can't be wrong,
our relationships restorable. Nope, I've shed my gloves and ear muffs.
This fight will come to fisticuffs now I'm really bumming.
Look I saw it coming, the telltale sign of cocoa puffs.
The bunny moon is over. You're cute, but I need
closure before matters get too tents. I'm building an impenetrable fence.
You stay out there and eat the clover. This conflict
was predictable. Your presence is extricable. It's wabbit season, whereby
it sh be very, very quiet. Old Elmer, you are despicable.
Can you tell I'm passionate about this topic.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you're about to hear my take on it
in Plants on Trial, So everybody get ready.
Speaker 1: Can't wait? That's coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified.
Speaker 2: Show, beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color
Choice Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique
varieties to choose from. There's a flowering shrubber evergreen for
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white container your local garden center or learn more at
proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Goore Reeting's gardening friends,
and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where the
topic of the day is rabbits. For a couple of reasons,
here we are before Easter, and of course everyone associates
Easter with rabbits. Second of all, because it's spring and
the rabbits are mating, if not having actual babies in
the yard, and that means they're hungry. And most importantly,
spring brings all of that tender, soft, young growth, which,
as you said, rick is their absolute favorite thing compared
to that tough growth that comes on later in the summer.
So all of those things combined to put rabbits on
your mind. Now, as a former bunny mom myself, I
would be remiss to not remind people that rabbits are
actually very high maintenance pets. They are not like a
hamster or something like that that you can just keep
in a cage. They are like a cat that you
can never leave alone interest. So if anyone is thinking, yes,
they're adorable and they make wonderful pets if you can
bond with them. Although personalities very widely, you know they
are definitely not an easy pet to have. Their digestions
are sensitive, so if you are thinking about a pet rabbit,
definitely you want to think twice about that. Take it
from me, But if you are prepared for everything that
comes with the rabbit. They make great pets, and I
learned a lot about rabbits having a pet rabbit, and
I learned a lot about how they eat, what they
eat and all of that. And so my unpopular opinion,
my horticultural hot take for today's episode is I don't
really mind having rabbits in my garden.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Well, I will hand it to you that they
produce a lot of good composts.
Speaker 2: Yes, they do manure.
Speaker 1: It's not hot, it's reusable.
Speaker 2: It's all like, you know, it's like when we were
talking about composts a couple of weeks ago, you know,
we said, like, you don't want carnivore animal compost or
you know, manure, you don't want omnivore animal manure, but vegetarians,
which rabbits are perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's fantastic and it's everywhere, and I you know,
it's something that drives me crazy is General Mills, the
cereal people, why they picked Sonny the Cuckoo Bird as
their mascot. They should have had a rabbit on the
box of.
Speaker 2: I don't know, trying to sell cereal, you know, all right,
But so for all of the years that we've done
the show, I have made my disdain for deer abundantly clear.
And really what this comes down to is I don't
mind rabbits because I do get to actually enjoy them.
The rabbits in our yard are very gregarious. You know,
we can be sitting there relaxing at the end of
the day and they come out. I have had one
actually walk up to my foot and sniff my foot
before last summer, and so it's very interesting to kind
of I honestly take it as a compliment that they've
chosen to, you know, make our yard their home. It
means a lot to me.
Speaker 1: I agree with you one hundred percent. I would take
a rabbit over deer any day.
Speaker 2: Now. If the deer wanted to come around when we're
hanging out in the yard and can watch them, that
would be a totally different thing. I would feel much
differently about the deer. Instead, the deer come in the
dead of night, you know, maraud through your yard, leave
a trail of giant cocoa puffs, and you know, damage everywhere,
and the rabbits like at least you get to see
them and watch them. And so it does make me
think a lot about sort of the ecosystem. So I
do believe that, yes, you know, it is a natural
part of gardening to have some rabbit damage. But that said,
rabbit damage can also get very abundant, and I'm not
gonna lie, rabbit damage can also be very heartbreaking. Even
though I do have a very high tolerance for the
rabbits that visit our garden, it's not to say I've
never had my heart broken. I cannot grow Alium's pherocephalon.
The drumstick Alium such a great plant, Absolutely love it.
I have planted hundreds of them, and not only do
the rabbits munch them down. So as soon as that
nice beautiful flower stock comes up, not only do the
rabbits mow it down, they don't eat it. Yes, so
they mow it down, they go, oh, you know, hey,
delicious flower stock. Oh my gosh, this tastes like onions.
Drop it. So then I don't have any drumstick Alium flowers,
and I have this mulch of cut off drumstick Alium
flowers that is frustrated. It is frustrating. Last year I
had planted one hundred in one bed, and they took
down every single one except one I.
Speaker 1: Had the same experience with aliums.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so now you will see if you start doing
some research onto rabbit resistant plants, consistently alium is on
the list. Correct, not not so. And I can understand
why people would say so, because of course they have
that very strong and unique kind of aroma. But yeah,
my rabbits eat have sampled every single alium in my
maybe not quite every single one, but the majority of
aliums that I have tried to grow. So basically all
of this is to say that I would say, even
more so than with deer, giving advice on rabbit resistant
plants is difficult.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: You know, when I was researching the show, I was
looking at university websites, which of course is my normal
habit to, you know, look up information from reputable sites,
not just some person you know, spouting off, but like
universities basing this on real life, you know, experience, and
you know the things that they were listening as rabbit resistant.
I'm like, they back out of that. In my yard,
they that every year, and then they go on to
say plant lavender as a scent deterrent. Do you have
any idea how much lavender I have in my yard,
and how many bunnies I have in my yard. It's
gonna work, It's not gonna work. Nothing is rabbit kryptonite,
just in the same way that nothing is deer kryptonite.
You can't. These are animals with a survival bent. They're
not just gonna be like whoa lavender better turntail and
run on the list. You know, they don't eat it, no,
but its presence certainly does not deter them whatsoever. So
I would encourage you to try, despite Rix's limerick, try
to make a little peace with the rabbits. Give up
on the things that you can't necessarily grow with them.
And the other thing that I have I've really noticed
about rabbits. It's quite interesting. Obviously, I get a lot
of shrubs working here at prouven Winter's color Choice Shrubs,
and what I have found consistently is that if you
can get a plant that is big enough and thick enough,
even if it's something the rabbits will normally eat, they
don't go into the thick wood. They don't like the
thick wood. They like thin wood. So a great example
would be bloomerang lilac. Okay, you know, good deer resistant
plant and mostly a rabbit resistant plant, except this plant
kind of lightly suckers. It puts out new shoots all
around the base every year, and every single year, the
rabbits eat every single one of those new shoots that
come out from the why because they're super thin, they're
super soft. Everything is cut off in the exact same
way at the exact same point because of their little
rabbit heights. Although I have seen a rabbit stand on
a tine legs to eat flowers, get up there and
then stand and pull it down and eat it. So
really you can grow almost anything if you can either
protect it long enough to get to that larger size
that it's not is appealing to rabbits, or you know
you're buying a larger size to begin with. So if
you have a lot of rabbits, I would say, just
like I say with deer, buy the largest plants that
you can. That is really going to help you because
you don't have to worry about that thin, soft top growth.
It's really the thin bottom growth that's a problem with
the rabbits. So that's one of the easiest strategies that
you can kind of take. But as far as what
rabbits don't eat. I think there are some general rules
that you can apply and that I have also seen.
Number One, rabbits do not like things with hair on them. Yes,
so potentilla great example.
Speaker 1: Deer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, neither do deer. I mean, Potentila is one of
the most deerproof and rabbit proof plants that you can grow.
It's not terribly heat tolerant. So sorry to all of
our warm climate friends who probably have even more rabbits
than we do in the north, but potentilla is one
that they definitely won't eat. It has kind of this
whitish hair all over it. Elderberry has a really strong smell.
I've actually had deer eat my elderberry, but never rabbits.
And you know I'm talking about sometimes even starting with
really really small plants. Boxwood, another plant they've never touched,
also has kind of a funky smell to in general,
and which is kind of great. I mean that gives
you a lot of really really nice plants. Big leaf hydranges,
they don't bother because you always have that pretty thick stem.
You know. These are not plants like the lilac. I
just explain that have those little kind of shoots coming
off them. They have big thicked stems, and the rabbits
never touch those. They never touch oak leaf, hydrangees with
that peeling bark, never touch butterfly bush. Now I'm not
really sure why that is, because.
Speaker 1: I think it's the soft, hairy foliage.
Speaker 2: I guess, you know. But they deer don't eat it either,
and it doesn't have like any particular smell or other characteristics.
Nothing eats my perennial hibiscus, So that's kind of great.
For Scythia milkweed, they never touch, Like I said, lavender,
never touch it, but definitely does not deter anything. Nepaita
another great plant. Another plant that I have that surprises
me Solomon seal variegated Solomon seal. Sure nothing touches that,
and that is such a wonderful plant. So you know,
this is I have come over the years to kind
of have this approach to gardening where I don't have
the kind of yard I can easily fence in, and so, yeah,
there are things that I can't grow or things that
I love and have tried to grow and have had
to give up. But overall, I think I much prefer
the peaceful coexistence with the rabbits, they get food and shelter.
I get to watch adorable bunnies every single year, and
I call that a win win. So anyway, we will
put this list, of course in YouTube, so you can
get all of that information in case you are driving
and listening to the podcast or radio version, and give
you a little starter for rabbit resistant plants. We're going
to take a little break. When we come back, we're
opening up the mailbag, so please statooed at proven Winner's
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with a better shrub. Our team of experts tests and
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home and express your personal style, look for Proven Winner's
Shrubs in the distinctive white container at your local garden
center or learn more at proven Winner's Color Choice dot com.
Creating's gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show,
where we're talking all about rabbits. Partly because Easter is
upon us and partly because the rabbits are upon us.
And you know, like I was saying in Plants on Trial,
I really love how much I learn by observing the
rabbits in my yard, and that the information that you
kind of take from those observations can help you come
up with other strategies to deter rabbits or you know,
find other methods to deal with them. And one of
them is where they nest. And I have found bunny
nests in my yard over the years in all sorts
of crazy places. Sometimes you know, where you'd think like
kind of tugged up underneath a shroud where they have
a lot of coverage, sometimes just right out in the open.
But one year I had container bunnies.
Speaker 1: Container bunny.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've actually had two years of container bunnies. And
I know this may come as a shock to people,
but rabbits apparently love to nest in containers.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I'm not talking like you're empty containers. I'm talking
containers that are full of fresh potting soil that you
have planted up and if they can access them.
Speaker 1: If they're elevated off the ground, maybe it's more.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So one year I had it was in a
very large, like twenty inch container, but I had that
container kind of grouped with smaller containers over it, and
I noticed that there was a rabbit nest in it,
and I was like, what is going on here? And
then one evening, sure enough, we watched the mama rabbit
come up and she went hop to the first container,
hop to the second container, and then hop right into
the top. It was pretty cute. But I have a
picture here, and if you're watching YouTube, you're definitely gonna
want to check this out on YouTube. I have a
beautiful kind of old fashioned concrete you know, box type
of container, you know, the kind that you'd use for
like alpine stuff, and I've historically grown time in it
and it's done great. And one year it was it
was quite late in the season, I think it was
early July. I happened to notice some hair in it
and I was like, oh, what is that? And I
looked closer and there was a bunny nest in this
container and we really got to watch it as it
went from Of course, I didn't tear it apart. I
knew what it was when I saw it, but we
got to watch it as the rabbits got bigger and
bigger until they could no longer fit into the nest
and the hair plug, so the mother rabbit pulls out
the fur on her hind quarters to line and fill
the hole. So that's where all of that comes from.
So if you see a rabbit looking really mangy, chances
are that's a mama rabbit whose hair is growing back
after she plucked it all out to make this cozy
little burrow for her babies. And it's also again a
telltale sign of a nest. And so we watch these
little baby bunnies get bigger and bigger until they could
not even fit in the hole anymore.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then they won by one. They left the nest.
And when they left the nest, they went over and
they hid. Each one went and hid under our hibiscus
that was right near where the nest was. It stayed
there until dusk. At that point the mother rabbit showed up.
The baby ran out from its hiding spot, nursed one
last time, she cleaned it, and it went off on
its bike. And it was just the most amazing thing
to see.
Speaker 1: Off to college.
Speaker 2: Yeah, off to college, which is another part of the garden.
Speaker 1: Apparently, you know, as long as we're going down this
rabbit hole. Then let me share that if you are
east of let's say, the Mississippi River, you're dealing predominantly
with a cotton tail eastern type rabbit. If you're in
the Plain States or the West or the Southwest, you
could be dealing with jack rabbits. And now you're taking
it to the next level. Those long eared rabbits that
can run forty five miles per hour, chew on cables,
propane gas hoses. You know, they've had lots of problems
at airports, long term parking where they've done damage because again,
rabbits have to keep their teeth shirt right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But along the lines of nesting, jack rabbits are true
hairs and they will nest above ground in brush. But
many of these bunnies that you're talking about really want
and in many cases are in a burrow, yeah, and
will nest that way. So again, habits of rabbits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Anyway, there's always something to be learned. But I
know that's not what you're here for. You're here for
answers to your gardening questions. And I will tell you
I have been getting a barrage of comments about what
to do about overgrown shrubs. Now We did a rejuvenation
show where we talked about this very topic, but that
wasn't really the best time to do this. So if
you are if you have one of these shrubs that
is just looking really overgrown, the wood is very thick
and it's not flowering as much, or it's just not
looking as lush and full as you want it to,
or you know it's kind of through winter damage, you've
lost part of the plant. Yes, you can absolutely rejuvenation
prune those. It's a great time to do that. And
any multi stem shrub. So any shrub that comes out
normally with multiple stems from the ground is a candidate
for rejuvenation pruning. And I just want to say spring
is a great time to do that. If it is
a spring flowering shrub like for ccythia or lilac, and
you do rejuvenation pruning right now, you will lose the flowers,
but that's not the end of the world, because you're
rejuvenating the thing anyway. But from a plant health standpoint,
it's the best time. And from a gardener sanity standpoint,
it is also the best time because I have learned.
It took me a while to learn this, even though
it seems dead obvious. Now, if you take off a
lot of plant parts before they have foliage, they are
a lot easier to deal with than when they are
fully leafed out. So great time to do that rejuvenation
pruning right now. Even if you're in a warmer climate
where things have already leafed out, you're gonna have the
whole season ahead of you for them to recover from
this rejuvenation.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I agree here or here I wish more
people did it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you've got a candidate, now is the time,
so sharpen up those loppers, replace the blade, and get chopping.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, Stacy, if you have a forsythia, maybe
you want to let it bloom and then chop it,
But you're so right, why not just abandon the flowers
for one year and get that plant rejuvening.
Speaker 2: Well all so you don't even need to fully abandon
the flowers because you can cut it all back and
then bring those stems inside, force them into bloom, enjoy
some flowers, and then you know, again, give that plants
sometlc in the coming weeks. But great time to do it.
So we have any of their questions in the mouthbag.
Speaker 1: Sure, Judy's writing to us, we have an infestation of
nightcrawlers in our yard. I hope you like fishing. A
couple of years ago I spent early spring nights out
in the yard with a flashlight, needle nosed pliers and
a bucket trying to deal with the problem and the
boy if they multiplied. Speaking with a nursery landscape company,
they said, this is a problem in other areas of
our city. Would you or your listeners have any solutions
to this problem? Thanks for your help from Manitoba, Canada.
Speaker 2: Right, so we have talked about this on the show before.
I know it comes as a surprise to a lot
of us who were raised thinking that the number of
earthworms in your soil is an indicator of soil health
and there's nothing better for your soil than earthworms. But
we don't have any native earthworms in North America. They
all went extinct with the glaciers many thousands of years ago.
And if they proliferate too much. If any earthworms do proliferate,
they are decomposing the organic matter too quickly, disrupts the ecosystem,
and so there's a lot of issues. Sometimes you can
even cause issues for the roots of your plants. So
the simplest advice that I have for you, Judy, is
something that they're using to diagnose jumping worms, which is
a very bad worm. Not I don't think it's all
the way up north in Canada just yet, but it's
all over the place. So here's what they do to
find out if you have jumping worms and help to
control them. You mix a third of a cup of
ground must Now, I want to say, especially since it's easter,
Coleman's mustard is the classic. It is extremely expensive. Do
not waste your money on Coleman's mustard for this job.
No nose, you have powdered mustard. You're not using like
a the You're not using like prepared mustard. Here's what
you need to do. You need to go to an
Indian grocery store and get a bag of mustard seed
and grind that yourself. You will save so much money.
You don't want to use your Colemus mustard for this.
Trust me, that little thing is like nine bucks. So uh,
there's your solution to affording this. So a third cup
of ground mustard. You put that in a one gallon
of water. You can just use like a gallon milk jug.
Although sorry, I know you're in Canada, so you probably
don't have a gallon milk jug, but at any gallon jar.
Mix that together, pull back the leaf litter, and then
pour that mixture all over the soil. Now you will
want to be standing by with a bucket and probably
some gloves because the mustard mixture irritates their skin and
they all come up to the surface. So you're gonna
have tons of worms coming up to the surface very
very quickly, and you're gonna want to scoop them up
and put them in your bucket and then you can
start a little fishing worm business.
Speaker 1: Interesting, I'm wondering. Do they have robins in Manitoba.
Speaker 2: Yes, so that's my other solution.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean if you had fruiting shrubs in the
yard to help attract because robins love fresh fruit, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing, if let's see it's Judy Judy,
I'd go to a computer and look up rent to
chicken dot com. I mean, can you rent a chicken.
Speaker 2: From maybe if you have just ask Yeah. I think
if you can do any number of things to encourage
wild or domestic birds in your yard and really pulling
back that leaf litter is key because yes, robins and
cat birds and so forth will thrash through that and
try to find the bugs. But you know, it's that
leaf litter that they live under. It keeps it cool,
that's what they're eating and decomposing. So if also if
you can kind of help to minimize leaf litter, keep
it open for the birds, do other things to encourage birds,
like have a bird bath would be really helpful. Having
a source of water for birds will certainly attract them.
Then you can also get some control through our avian friends.
So I hope that's at least a little helpful. At
least the mustard solution will help you get a gauge
of just how severe your issue is, even if it's
not necessarily feasible across your entire yard. So thanks so
much for your question, Judy. We're going to take a
little break. When I come back, we are continuing our
conversation on the habits of rabbits, so please stay tuned.
Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified podcast, brought to
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show as we talk
about habits of rabbits today. And by the way, while
you were talking there in segment three, I did go
to rent a chicken dot com and the domain site
is available, so if you want to buy it, I'll
go in with you.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I think, yeah, this is your business idea.
You connect people with chickens you need fed, with people
who have chicken food, and you know chickens absolutely love
Japanese beetles. So I think you're going to have a
big business spike in July. Yeah, you could be onto
something or maybe our listeners are.
Speaker 1: Domain names available. What came up was McDonald's senior menu.
Speaker 2: Not really sure how that relates.
Speaker 1: I don't know why that came up other than I
liked the senior coffee at McDonald's. But that's just how
it goes. Okay, back to rabbits. Here's one thing you
can do alter the habitat. In other words, eliminate all
brush brush piles, stone piles, weed patches, long grass, wood
pile all of that sort of thing. Again, as you mentioned, Stacy,
they're not only looking for vegetation to eat, but they're
looking for cover, right, Yeah, so that's one thing. Scare
devices a dog can be a good deterrent, but of course,
if you have a dog, you need to care for
the dog its own care and containment issues. But that
may work for you. And then of course people will
try the sprinklers. They'll set out these inflatable owls and
snakes and that type of thing, and they don't work
so much.
Speaker 2: No, And I think you know, if you live in
a neighborhood, so you have neighbors nearly reasonably close by,
they're just not as scared of stuff as maybe out
in the country where things might be a little bit
more unfamiliar. So yeah, I think there's just a lot
of presumption out there about what actually deters rabbits. But
I think the habit modification thing is really interesting because
especially when we see the babies take up residence in
our yard, they always come from the same direction. They
become very habitual, So that can help you if you
really do want to eradicate the rabbits, identify what are
those areas that are giving these rabbits, you know, safe
coverage where they feel like they can always approach from
this direction or you know, hey, I always see it
dart out from under this plant or that plant. You know,
can you you know, maybe stake that plant up and
create some space around it. You know, this is all
just IPM kind of stuff, right, So I learn the
habits of rabbits, so we can then apply that knowledge
to come up with least toxic, least harmful solutions to
managing them in our yards.
Speaker 1: Now, of course, you can repel the rabbits, and there
are many, many different types of repellents on the market.
Many of them involve pepper and other essential oils like
cinnamon oil, mint oils, that sort of thing. Somewhat effective
at least when there's heavy pressure and early spring and
the vegetation is succulent. Then maybe using these sprays for
a period of time, but it's a pain for you,
it's a pain for your pocket book, and it's somewhat effective,
so from time to time repellance may become necessary. You know.
Speaker 2: The other thing to think about too with the feeding.
So when a deer feeds on your plant, right, the
damage is pretty high because deer obviously taller, and so
then you get these kind of witches broom resulting from
that feeding up at the top, and that can kind
of make the plant look all funky, Whereas with the
rabbit damage, since it's happening low down on the plant,
all to really doing is giving you some branching, so
you know, really, there's a lot of ways. I think
that plants can generally recover in a much more aesthetic
fashion from most rabbit damage compared to deer damage, although
I have had to. I have tried to grow ornamental clothes,
and the way they ate that thing, there was no
coming back of that. So, especially for shrubs and larger perennials,
a little bit of browsing, you know, if you don't
want to spray, or you missed it. Because plants are
growing so quickly, generally, I feel like not the end
of the world, especially compared with deer damage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you said it clover is like ice
cream to rabbits. And did I say earlier? Planting beans
can be a real proud I love planting bean. I
love growing beans. There's so much fun to grow. But wow,
it's just amazing how they're attracted to being well.
Speaker 2: You know, we have a vegetable garden, of course, and
when we put the stuff the metal wire fencing around
it last year, we were like, hey, no rabbit can
fit through there. This is fine, but we didn't think
about the baby rabbits, and the baby rabbits could just
top right on in there like there was no tomorrow.
So one of the first things on our spring to
do list here as the weather gets a little warmer
is to put up to and wire, which we will,
as you just described, kind of bend down so they
can't dig below it, and hopefully that will keep them
away from the beans, because I am ready to get
plant in the veg garden.
Speaker 1: And I hate dealing with chicken wire. It is one
of the most frustrating materials to work.
Speaker 2: I told my husband this. He seems to think he's
going to be able to do it, so I'll report
back on Wow, you can't know what this is.
Speaker 1: It's just something I don't look forward to it. It's
just so's so fun.
Speaker 2: He sees it in the roles, He's like, Eh, it
doesn't look so bad. I said, I have it on
good authority. This is not the most fun stuff to
deal with but we shall see which.
Speaker 1: Brings up the next point, exclude the rabbits. So exclusion
of rabbits is probably the most consistently effective method, but
it's costly for you. Not everybody wants to build a
compound like I've built and then go around all all
around the compound with that rotten chicken wire and attach it.
But I've done it, and then of course look for
the smoozes because they do somehow miraculously appear. But it
does bring up a point if you don't want all
the work or the cost of a compound and a fence,
because I get it, fencing is expensive. What you can
do is selectively exclude rabbits from certain plants that you
find they are highly attracted to, or maybe it's a
highly prized plant. I mentioned earlier about how important it
is in the fall with young trees or that sort
of thing, to protect them as you go into winter
if you get a fair amount of snow in the winter,
So Stacy, some selective excluding or selective barriers might work
for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's better if there are
just certain things that you can protect. Obviously, it makes
it a lot easier than trying to protect a large area.
And again, sometimes you only need to protect things while
they're young and the growth is very fine and succulent,
and as they get older they don't need protection anymore.
Not so much in the vegetable garden they usually do.
But perennials and shrubs you can be in good shape.
Speaker 1: Now, I have to admit I've tried live trapping before.
Live trapping with a have a heart trap didn't go well. No, no,
I caught everything but a rabbit. And you know, so
you try what you can with apple slices or corn
on the cob, dried apples. I've even put rabbit droppings
in there and it didn't work for me, but I
wanted to, you know, live travel. Of course, they're very territorial.
And one interesting thing about rabbits in the landscape in
the garden is once they've established in an area. That's
why I say you got to get rid of the
brush piles, is that they don't travel very far. They
have a tendency to be territorial. So you know, I
was going to do a good deed and live tra
but it didn't go so hot. Maybe you're you'll be
more successful.
Speaker 2: To me, you know, I wonder if it's partly because
they they like to feed on a diversity of food sources, right,
so they're not just like, Okay, you know, I'm here
to just eat this one thing over and over. They
they really diversify their own diets and browse a lot
of different things. So if you're just baiting the thing,
they're just like, no, I'm not in the mood for
you know, apples today.
Speaker 1: I think, I don't know you've owned a pet rabbit.
I think they're smarter than we give them credit for. Um.
Speaker 2: I think that they are just so I mean, I'm
not saying they're not smart. They can be trained a
little bit to do stuff. He might be the exception
and not the rule. I think that they are just
so naturally cautious because of that high predation rate, that
they are more caution driven than food driven. So like
a raccoon's going to be like, oh, you got an
apple in there, I'm I'm there, whereas the rabbit's going
to be like, I don't know about this. This looks
a little little fishy.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, Stacy. Then I start to look towards
rabbit proof plants, and there are no guarantees, and I
think you have to know that going in. However, I
have found any of the broad leaf evergreens, so Azalea's
box would holly that sort of thing. Rhododendrons good success,
really no problem with rabbits. I had potentilla on my
list and butterfly bush. I agree with you there, things
like white pine, blue spruce use any of the text
are Yeah, whereas we've talked before about how we're amazed
that deer will eat taxes. Oh yeah, but the rabbits
have a tendency to leave it alone. Adjuratum, yucca, asters
be balm, and I'm thinking that in my experience, generally
something that has some essential oils in it or or
a smell, whether it's bee balm or any of your
herbs like oregano and oregano. By the way, I just
planted boy. I think that the name of the variety
is drops of Jupiter.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's an ornamental oregano.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ornamental oregano, proven winners oregano, and so any of those.
Basil yep. Never had a problem with basil.
Speaker 2: I don't think that they've eaten any herbs. Wan to
knock on wood here but I don't think they've eaten
any herbs my garden.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: They don't like yeah that that anything that's kind of
resinous or smells strongly, they they will definitely stay away from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for example, hardy chrysanthemums. Ah, yeah, they won't touch them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just not really good too.
Speaker 1: Fox glove, ferns, goats beard, all of those are possibility.
M have had no problem.
Speaker 2: Because that's got the hairy foliage.
Speaker 1: Had lavender on my list. Paeonies, no problem with Russian sage.
Any of the salvia's perennial or annual have not had
a problem. They're geraniums, Colendula again, no problems. Daffodils and hyacinths,
no problems, whereas tulips big problem with. Yeah, rabbits and deer, onions, potatoes, squash, cucumbers,
all of them. I mean, you know they've walked right
past the cucumbers and then mowed down the beans.
Speaker 2: Cucumbers are kind of hairy too, a little bit prickly
on the foliage.
Speaker 1: So did I mention if you want rabbits in your
landscape plant beans? Hey, Stacy, this has been fun. Hopefully
you've learned something about rabbits and let's get ready for
him because they're out there this spring. Thank you Stacy,
thank you Rick, Thanks Adriana. Thanks to you for watching
us on YouTube, downloading the podcast, and listening to the
radio version of our show. Have yourself a great week