The home gardeners frequently ask ‘How to keep rabbits out of garden without a fence?‘ to save their gardens from wandering rabbits. If you are also the one searching for effective ways to control rabbits, Hi-five!
It is super easy.
Homemade rabbit repellents, home remedies, electronic pest repellers, row covers, and visual deterrents like owl statues are the most effective ways to keep rabbits out of the garden. Similarly, protecting individual plants or growing plants rabbits don’t like also ensure rabbits would not come to the garden.
Here you will get amazing recipes to make repellents with kitchen ingredients, expert’s home remedies, plant protection ides, repellers, deterrents, and much more.
So, why delay? Let’s start!
Key Learning Points
DIY Rabbit Repellent
DIY rabbit repellents are one of the best ways to keep rabbits out of the garden naturally.
These are purely organic, and you don’t need any chemicals or harsh commercial products that are damaging to plants.
All you need is water and some kitchen ingredients.
Ingredients – Rabbit Repellent for Yard
- 1-2 tbsp crushed red pepper/hot sauce
- 5-6 crushed garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp dish soap
- Water
- Gallon
- Garden sprayer
Repellent Recipe – How to Keep Rabbits out of Garden without a Fence?
- First of all, take a clean gallon. You can easily use an empty milk jug to make rabbit repellent for the yard or garden.
- Fill the gallon with water. You can use lukewarm warm to get results faster; otherwise, cold water also works fine.
- Next, take in 1tsp of dish soap to the water to make the mixture stickier for plants.
- After adding soap, here comes the essential ingredient, the hot sauce or crushed red chili. You can use either. If using hot sauce, add about 1 to 2 tbsp into the repellent solution. Similarly, if you want to use red chili, take the same quantity of crushed chili and add it to the solution.
- In the end, add 5-6 crushed garlic cloves into the mixture. Close the lid firmly and shake well to combine all ingredients.
- Now, place the bottle in the sun to speed up mixing. After 2 to 3 days, open the lid, and you will get a strong smell that will deter rabbits from your garden or lawn.
When you get rabbit repellent is ready to use, transfer a small proportion of it to the clean spray bottle and spray in your lawn.
Most rabbits enter the garden in the evening, so spray the plants early in the evening.
If you have certain plants, rabbits constantly feed, spray all over and around the plant. When rabbits get something unpleasant, they will stop feeding.
I use to apply this spicy rabbit repellent twice a week and reapply after rainfall as there is nothing wrong with using it over and over again.
You have to ensure rabbits with its taste that your garden is not a place to feast.
Essential Oil Rabbit Repellent
Essential oils work well to deter rabbits in the garden or backyard for their strong scents. You can dilute the oil in water to make a spray or simply place 4 to 5 drops of essential oil onto a cotton ball and place it near plants.
You can use essential oil of any aromatic herb like:
Ensure Garden Is Not Rabbit Friendly
If you don’t want rabbits roaming in your lawn or garden, ensure your garden is not rabbit-friendly.
- There must be no hiding or nesting spots to encourage rabbit reproduction.
- When there would be dense shrubs, bushes, stands of tall weeds, or woodpiles, they will definitely come to your place to eat flowers, fruits, trunks, or even stems of growing plants.
- If there is heaps of litter, rotten fruits, dried leaves, or even gardening tools, you won’t stop them. They just come and make their room in the garden, manage food by dining on your plants, and live happily (by destroying your Green Land).
- Lastly, be sure the plants in your garden are not the rabbit’s favorite. Rabbit-friendly plants are apple, pear, strawberry, barberry, species of rose, and other flowering plants.
So, don’t put your garden at stake by inviting wild rabbits and giving livable conditions.
Home Remedies
If you wonder how to keep rabbits out of the garden with home remedies, you are not alone. A few years back, wild rabbits in my yard were a constant headache.
Rabbits were destroying my lawn, and I was clueless.
A good friend of mine once visited my patch and diagnosed the pest problem. She shared workable home remedies for how to get rid of rabbits in my yard naturally.
I tried them all at different times and got magical results.
- Sprinkle some powdered red chili, black pepper, or garlic powder around the garden or on targeted plants to keep rabbits off your lawn.
- Simply dust your plants with plain talcum powder. The strong scent of powder won’t allow rabbits to munch on your plants.
- A dried or powdered blood meal is one of the best solutions to keep rabbits out of your vegetable garden or lawn. Just apply this blood meal in garden areas you want to protect from rabbits and reapply after rainfall to get satisfactory results. After using blood meal in your lawn, you will also see the difference in soil quality as it enriches garden soil with nitrogen that is healthy for plants.
- Using cat litter is inexpensive and effective in deterring rabbits.
- Limestone powder is an excellent repellent for rabbits. It works in the same manner as red pepper for controlling rabbits. The little bunnies cannot get the smell of limestone and run away.
- Sprinkle some pet or human hair around trees, shrubs, or garden beds to get rid of rabbits naturally.
How to Keep Rabbis Out of Garden – Get Benefit of Predators
If you don’t have anything but lovely pets like cats or dogs, you don’t need anyone else to force rabbits to leave your place. They chase bunnies or rabbits and scare them with their presence.
Additionally, the cat or dog’s hair and urine are enough to keep them out of your yard.
Individual Plant Protection
Protection of individual plants is easy and fruitful to prevent rabbits from damaging your plants. You have two best ways of protecting plants individually.
- Plant protection cages
- Expandable tree protector/Tree guard
Plant Cages
Young plantlets are fragile and more vulnerable to rabbit attacks. You can use chicken wire or plant protection cages for saving delicate stems and growing branches of smaller plants.
There must be a few smaller plants in your backyard needing extra care; you can enclose them in cages and give proper attention.
Expandable Tree Protectors
Tree guards or expandable tree protectors keep trunks of woody shrubs or trees safe from gnawing pests like rabbits or bunnies.
Wild rabbits in the garden can make the trunk of your tree completely hollow and break the flow of water and nutrients that are deadly for the plant. These tree protectors encircle the trunk and keep rabbits from gnawing the bark while the plant equally grows.
This is how you can protect trees from plants and your problem how to keep rabbits out of garden without a fence is solved.
Electronic/Ultrasonic Pest Repeller
Electronic or Ultrasonic rabbit repellent is so far my favorite way of deterring rabbits from my garden. A plus point of using these repellers is all types of pests, including rodents, mice, raccoons, skunks, and even squirrels, keep away from my yard.
It’s a great deal!
You must be unaware of this innovative rabbit control method but believe me, its versatility is beyond your expectations.
Ultrasonic repeller produces sounds, inaudible to humans but audible to rabbits.
Now, if you are thinking does ultrasonic sound hurt rabbits, the answer is a big No!
Ultrasonic pest repeller is safe for rabbits and is an absolutely humane way of deterring them out of the yard. The rabbits get this constant vibration as a danger and avoid that area.
Add Visual Deterrents
Visual deterrent for rabbits in the garden is an excellent approach to keep them away from your plants.
You can use decoy predators like a plastic snake or ceramic owl as a symbol of danger to scare them away.
Just mount these predators with some moving objects and move them around in your garden to ensure that your lawn is not a safe nibbling place.
Pinwheels also help to scare rabbits from the garden. Their spinning motion and the sound keep rabbits away.
Grow Rabbit Resistant Plants
A natural way to get rid of rabbits is to grow rabbit-proof or rabbit-resistant plants in your garden. These are plants rabbits dislike for strong scents, thorny branches, milky secretion, or thick fuzzy leaves.
These could be either in your edible garden, ornamental beds, or herb garden.
Rabbits would not come back to your lawn when they encounter a highly fragrant or thorny plant. They will either move to other plant beds to find their favorite plant or leave your garden permanently.
An excellent solution to tackle this problem is growing different plant varieties in various garden beds to deter rabbits.
I also deceive wild rabbits in my garden with the same trick.
The herbs and vegetable rabbits avoid are:
- Basil
- Oregano
- Parsley
- Lemon balm
- Rosemary
- Mint
- Onion
- Garlic
- Hot pepper
Similarly, flowers and shrubs to repel rabbits are:
- Daffodil
- Marigold
- Lavender
- Zinnia
- Geranium
- Snapdragon
- Holly
- Boxwood
- Cedar
- Juniper
Garden Fabric or Floating Row Covers
If you don’t want to lose a different plant or a seasonal crop, you must use garden fabric or floating row covers for targeted coverage.
These fabrics or coverings help to hide your greens from pests like rabbits or bunnies and act as a barrier.
Row covers are also an inexpensive and easy way that you can use at your convenience. Although rabbits don’t have any fixed time to visit a garden mostly, roam at night, and covering plants near sunset goes best.
Coming to an end, do you still think how to keep rabbits out of garden without a fence is still a problem for you?
I’m sure there is no more problem.
Just mark the ways that are most suitable for you and do that. You will get a peaceful garden in a few days after using these workable methods.
Leave a Reply