Hello Hope Patch Gardeners,
As I was examining the Hope Patch on Wednesday to review the tulip shoot growth, I noticed several shoots that had been chewed down. Arrggh! A pirate bunny is looting my Hope Patch for a tulip salad. I put up a fence around the Patch this evening and did a quick search on other tips for controlling pests from raiding my Hope Patch.
Here are a few tips that I discovered from various gardening websites:
Sprinkle blood meal around your plants. This deters rabbits but does need to be reapplied. Some people also use bone meal and Crittter Ritter.
Use cayenne or red pepper which will cause rabbits to withdraw from the area, but a humane individual commented that pepper can burn the animals paws and eyes, so use this method with discretion.
Other gardeners place false scents, such as to human hair, deodorant soap, Ropell, dog or predator urine.
Some people have used motion-detector noise makers (like frogs) that respond to movement and scare bunnies away.
Others have done live trapping and exclusion fencing.
Others have rubbed petroleum jelly on the leaves themselves which repels hungry rabbits. (Come on, let’s face it. Would you like vaseline for a salad dressing?)
Another gardener has had success laying branches of a Russian sage bush around her tulips and the scent keeps rabbits away.
So there you have it – a few time-tested ways to control pests in the Hope Patch. Try the ones that make sense to you. Share your experience in a comment if you have other remedies.
Dave Pipitone, Author of The Rainbow Chronicles: A Bedtime Story for a New Day