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How to Keep Rabbits out of Garden without a Fence

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A cute rabbit enjoying a sunny day, sitting peacefully in the grass

Rabbits and bunnies are cute little small mammals belonging to the Leporidae family that hop around your garden. They make good pets, but if you have a garden with a dedicated flower bed and a home-grown vegetable garden, then having them hopping around your garden could be a problem.

Fencing your garden could be one way to keep them out, but it is either a tedious task or requires hiring professionals. So, if you are wondering how to keep them at bay without installing an actual garden fence, here are some DIY garden fence techniques and easy tricks to keep them out of your garden.

In this blog, we have shared some amazing ways to prevent rabbits from attacking your flowers, veggies, and fruits.

Tips to Keep Rabbits Away from Your Garden without Fencing

A brown and white rabbit enjoying a field of daisies

Below, we have enlisted some non-toxic ways to prevent rabbits from making your garden their own home.

1. Keeping Rabbits out Using Rabbit-Repellent Plants

Did you know that rabbits dislike the smell and taste of plants like daffodils, lavender, marigolds, onions, and garlic? Planting these in your garden can save your day as the rabbits won’t go near them.

You could either plant them in the perimeter area of your garden or around your vegetable plants to keep them away. Alternatively, you could use some garlic powder to spray on your plants to protect them from rabbits.

2. Unleashing Your Furry Babies

If you have pets at home, like cats or dogs, you can release them in the garden in the wee hours of the morning because that’s when rabbits love enthusiastically hopping in your garden.

These furry animals will chase the rabbits around, and rabbits will be discouraged from venturing into the garden as they consider cats and dogs their predators. Try some other kinds of physical barriers.

3. Try DIY Spray Repellents

You can try your DIY spray repellents on the rabbits that can keep them out of your gardens. You can prepare these spray repellents from simple kitchen ingredients. Rabbits aren’t fond of the capsaicin present in hot peppers.

To make a hot pepper spray, you only need 4 cups of water and 1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper. Boil them in a pot and allow it to cool for some time. Transfer the contents to a spray bottle and then apply it to your plants once a week or after downpours to keep the rabbits away from your plants.

4. Add Some Physical Garden Barriers

Fencing with chicken wire and having a 1-inch mesh around your garden beds is one way to deal with the rabbit problem. Another way to create physical barriers is to use motion-activated water sprinkler systems.

Apart from this, another alternative way is to make some DIY plant cages for your vulnerable vegetable plants. You can make a DIY cage with chicken wire. For this, cut the chicken wire according to the suitable size needed to enclose the plant. Then, bend them into arc shapes with the help of a wire cutter. Now bend or twist the open ends of the chicken wire. Bury the structure at least six inches into the ground to prevent rabbits from digging the ground and entering the structure from the ground level.

5. Use Some Other Tricks to Keep Rabbits Away

You could use visual or audio deterrents to keep the rabbits away from the garden beds. Among visual deterrents, place some fake rubber snakes or owl statues in the garden. Alternatively, you could also place some metal pinwheels. Its sound and shiny appearance will certainly keep the rabbits away.

You could also hang some windchimes from high trees. The sound of the windchimes will certainly startle the rabbits and make them hop out of your garden quickly.

6. Sprinkle Some Baby Powder on Your Plants

Sprinkle some baby powder on those plants in your garden that you do not want to be eaten by the neighborhood rabbits. This is because rabbits hate the odor of baby powder.

It can also irritate the nasal passages of these small mammals, thereby discouraging them from getting any close to the plants spread with baby powder.

7. Sprinkle Dried Sulfur on the Garden Beds

Sulfur is an excellent natural fungicide. It can also naturally lower the pH of your soil. But on the downside, it has a pungent odor, which isn’t well-tolerated by rabbits. So, to ward off the cute bunnies, you can use sulfur in your garden.

8. Make Use of Coffee Grounds

Another natural and economical way to repel bunnies out of your garden beds is by using coffee grounds. According to garden experts, rabbits also find the smell of coffee obnoxious.

The strong odor of caffeine will discourage rabbits from venturing into your gardens every morning. Caffeine also works as an excellent natural fertilizer. Therefore, you can sprinkle some coffee grounds in the garden to keep the bunnies away.

Conclusion

Although you get plenty of fencing options to secure your front yard or backyard from intruders of any sort, if you want to avoid hiring people to fence your ground and also want to save those extra bucks, then you could take the help of our humane and non-harmful techniques to discourage rabbits from destroying your garden plants.

These techniques can be useful to keep other small rodents and animals away from your backyard. We hope that you loved our suggestions and will continue to enjoy gardening without worrying about rabbits eating away your cute green pets.

Chloe Adams
Chloe Adams is an expert in landscape design with a degree in Landscape Architecture from University of California, Berkeley. Her specialization in outdoor structures has been an asset to our website since she joined. Her articles are a testament to her commitment to blending practicality with style. Before this, Chloe worked with several landscaping firms, developing a keen eye for functional and aesthetic outdoor design. She is known for her sustainable and creative solutions in her articles. In her spare time, Chloe is an avid gardener and enjoys hiking, constantly drawing inspiration from nature.

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