Ravenous rabbits and reckless raccoons

A couple of days ago, as I was picking up Magnolia leaves littering the front garden for the third time that day, I saw something odd out of the corner of my eye.

This plant was so disfigured, I didn't immediately recognize it

I'd only planted a few things under the Coleonema album that occupies this corner so, within seconds it clicked that is had to be Astelia 'Silver Shadow', the plant shown here in better days

Of course, the culprit was easy to identify even though I hadn't caught him (or her - or them) in the act.

I'd divided another Astelia last year when it proved to be unhappy in full sun and transplanted two divisions in the same area.  It took me awhile to find remnants of them.  This is one of them.  The other is a mere nub poking out of the soil.  The plant, a drought tolerant New Zealand native, has stiff leaves I'd never thought would appeal to rabbits.

I've lived here ten and a half years.  There was no evidence of rabbits until three years ago.  My next door neighbor, who's been gardening here for thirty or more years, confirmed that the rabbits are recent arrivals.  For the first two years, the rabbits were early springtime visitors, disappearing well before summer, presumably culled by the resident coyotes, but this year they're still very active throughout the neighborhood.  I've had numerous sightings; however, I haven't caught one on camera this year as yet.  I've responded by covering seedlings and small plants with empty plastic flats.  I didn't think to cover the gladiola corms I planted in one of the raised beds in my cutting garden, though.

The gladiola corms I planted in this bed in the back garden were never touched so I didn't expect the rabbits would jump into the raised planters to go after the foliage of corms planted there weeks later

When I realized that the new gladiola foliage in the cutting garden had been nibbled by half, I covered the emerging plants as best I could with more flats.

This is the covered bed last week when I turned around and realized that something was wrong

Even before I removed some of the flats for a better look, I knew that rabbits weren't responsible for this particular infraction

Rabbits nibble.  Raccoons dig.  The latter were clearly not put off by the overturned plastic flats, even though I'd used lawn staples to fix many of the flats in place.

The raccoons weren't very active here during spring for some reason, although there was evidence that they visited the fountain in the back garden on a regular basis.  Their grub-hunting activities started in late June.  They've yanked out a few plants recently so I've been covering some of my taller plants with wire cloches.  I expect I need many more of those.

Last week, I replanted an area in front of our garage I've been struggling with for months.

There was a huge self-sown sweet pea bush (Polygala fruticosa) here for years until it got ratty and I pulled it out late last year.  I planted 3 Verbascum 'Wedding Candles' and a Salvia barrelieri ordered by mail in late December only to have all of them them eaten to the ground overnight by rabbits.  They never fully recovered and I pulled them out last week. 

I've been pulling Polygala seedlings out of the area for months and I spent a good hour trying to get the rest of these out before supplementing the soil with compost and planting mix

I replanted the area with Lavandula angustifolia 'Hidcote Blue', Brachyscome angustifolia 'Fresco Purple', Thymus 'Pink Chintz', and Verbena bonariensis 'Lollipop'.  I'd read that rabbits hate lavender so I thought I had a chance that the scent would keep them away.  My only immediate concern with this planting scheme was that the lavender might not get sufficient sun.

I decided not to take chances and covered the low-growing groundcover plants, the Brachyscome and thyme, with plastic flats using lawn staples to prevent them from being easily pushed aside

Yesterday, I took a look at the plants and discovered that, although the lavender was untouched, its scent wasn't sufficient to deter the rabbits from eating the dwarf Verbena.

I have three Verbena bonariensis growing in the back garden that haven't been touched but the two planted in front of the garage looked like they've been badly pruned

I repurposed two wire cloches I'd been using to cover Alternanthera plants the raccoons had previously dug up to cover the Verbena.  

I wonder if there's a bounty I could pay the coyotes to patrol my garden more often?

Hopefully, the Alternanthera is more well-rooted now that it's been in the ground for a couple of months.  While holding onto that hope, I'm going to buy myself a few more wire cloches.  After all, it appears that I need to learn to live with the critters in my garden.  They're clearly not going to disappear.

All material © 2012-2021 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party