So before I write about spring cleanup in the garden, which is going pretty well, I have to touch on an unpleasant subject. Namely, my failure to protect all my woody plants from girdling.
Rabbits will chew the outer bark off of certain woody plants during the winter when other foods are scarce. Plants like Serviceberry (Amelanchier x grandiflora), above. Rabbits like young woody plants best, but this Serviceberry is at least 15 years old, so I guess they decided not to discriminate on the basis of age any longer. Funny thing, it’s the first time this plant was bothered by rabbits or any other mammal.
Rabbits also like roses. With roses, they’ll eat the whole cane as long as it is sufficiently tender. The little stick you see above is all that is left currently of what was once a fairly robust ‘Sally Holmes’.
This is the third time, and the second year in a row, that ‘Sally Holmes’ has been reduced to a nubbin. Each time she has sent up new canes, but the blooms are later and less prolific. Can this go on indefinitely?
Oh, and they also got at a newer Serviceberry – see the unfocused picture above, with the chicken wire applied after the damage was done. And they chewed on a new Witch Hazel (Hamemelis x intermedia) I planted this fall.
This is all an object lesson in the perils of procrastination. I kept thinking to myself, I should really protect those shrubs with chicken wire, and then I let it go for another weekend. And now look.
So now I have to see if the stems have been killed above the chew marks. The answer will be yes, unless somehow enough of the vascular tissue has survived. More than likely I will have to cut these shrubs down to below the chew marks, which is almost ground level. What a dreary prospect.
For the moment, the upper stems give no sign of dying, but it’s early still. Guess I’ll just try to preserve my optimism as long as possible.
gardeninacity 
So sorry to hear of your problem, and so frustrating for you as a keen gardener. Do you or your neighbours have a cat ? I ask because when rabbits were breeding in my garden, one of the neighbours cats was coming and killing all the babies. They soon moved house, thank goodness, otherwise my shrubs would have been like yours.
We used to have a cat, and we are seriously considering getting another. Although allowing your cat to wander outdoors is frowned upon, as they do hunt songbirds among other things.
Well, Petey’s cuteness is fooling me. 😃
That’s just to foster a false sense of security.
Optimism is good right now – hold on to it. 🙂
I’m trying.
No such thing as a cute rabbit except in a book. You have my sympathy. I sure hope your poor plants will be all right.
Thank you. I’ll keep you informed.
With our mild winter I thought my plants were going to escape the depredations of the Gnawing Gang but as time has gone on the rotten buggers have turned to eating everything that is not caged. My DB has said I don’t know how many times that I should have caged this and that. If I did that the garden would look like a fence factory. To top it all off I accused rabbits of eating the blossoms of my Snowdrops and wouldn’t you know I looked out the window and saw a squirrel eating the blossoms! My garden is being attacked by two fronts. UGH!!!! As you say, don’t let the cuteness fool you.
Fence factory – ha! The rabbits eat the blossoms off of my Crocus and Tulips but I haven’t seen them do that to the Snowdrops.
I saw a program on a Canadian station about aspen trees having a substance in their bark that prevents rabbits from digesting the bark. The rabbits get sick. Someone should bottle the stuff. Rather than a virus that sickens humans, how about one for rodents?
If they bottled it, I would buy it!
Oh, gosh! One more thing.
After our great rabbit debacle last year, I feel pretty confident that your damage won’t need hacking to the ground. It looks pretty superficial to me so I’d give it a good while before you whack it back that hard! I’m always amazed at how resilient they are. Good luck though!
Well, that’s reassuring. I hope you are right.
I guess that’s what happened to my rose that I can’t find. 😦 Darned rabbit. One of our two dogs killed a rabbit mid winter, and my little terrier really tries. I have to admit, the rabbits are made of pretty stern stuff to keep coming into a yard filled with dog.
They’re not afraid of me at all when I try to shoo them. Your roses may send up new canes, though.
They aren’t afraid of anything! 😦 I’ve watched them sit tight while my little terrier passes right by them. He must not be able to smell them???
I hope it does. It was languishing under the trees that had grown up around it, and I had just moved it to a better spot.
I am totally taken with cuteness. My three attempts at growing yellowwood trees (cladastris kentukea) were stimied by cottontails. At last, after chewing shoot to the ground for two years in a row, one tree had grown sufficient roots and was able to prevail above ground. Victory!
Huzzah! Not sure if I’ve ever seen a yellowwood.
As long as the bark isn’t taken off around the entire stem they can live, but they’ll be weakened for a while.
Well, it looked to me like it was all the way around, but I’ll just wait and see what happens.
I feel your pain. Having lost many shrubs over the years to rabbit damage, I now automatically encage them with poultry netting when I plant them. Trees too. (Oddly, they don’t seem interested in the shrubs I *wish* they would kill.)
They definitely go after some shrubs and leave others alone – not to their taste, I guess.
Huge problem in the garden where I work.
They might look cute but ….
I would set the cats on them if I had cats.
Could this be who was chewing on the stump that you asked me about earlier? I do not think that they would be interested in a dead stump. I really do not know.
No, I don’t think rabbits chew on dead wood. Not sure who does – maybe beavers, but there are none of those around here.
Sasquatch?
Those darn rabbits! I think rabbits could give cockatoos a run for first place in destruction of gardens and farms.
I’ve never had to deal with cockatoos. In our region groundhogs and deer can give rabbits a run for their money in terms of destructiveness. Fortunately, neither are common in our immediate area.
We have seen deer herds multiple within our nearby national park…doing great damage to the environment.
Non-gardener me had no idea rabbits could be so destructive. I always have thought of them as grass munchers, thanks to too many sweet but unrealistic books, I suppose. I’m still trying to figure out what ate through the rocker panels on both sides of my car. Squirrel? Raccoon? Dog? I have no idea, and neither did my insurance agent. She said, “Oh, yeh. We see that a lot.” Better keep an eye on your chicken wire, too.-
So far the chicken wire has been effective. If only the rabbits would limit themselves to grass.
Sadly I subscribe to the same caging practices and many of my plants look just as badly chewed. I did try and save a few things after losing two witch hazels and a new dogwood, but the blueberries took a beating. I’m wondering if I can plant anything more tempting to lure them away…
Well, that’s a strategy I hadn’t thought of. Let me know if it works.
It is ironic, isn‘t it… we plant a garden for wildlife and then they go and destroy it! Our problem here is mice. And maybe a hare or two. Something is nibbling at various plants as they emerge this spring. Fortunately the shrubs haven‘t been damaged… yet! Hope your serviceberry recovers.
I think there are mice around but they don’t seem to do much damage in the garden.
Sorry to hear of the damage to your plants caused by cute vermin. I hope they survive and eventually recover. For new susceptible plants you’re putting in, you could try and get in the habit of adding the protection as part of the planting process – perhaps before you do the watering (as you probably do that without thinking. So: dig the hole, fertilise the bottom, plant, backfill, protect, water. Then it’s not something you need to try and get round to doing afterwards.
That is very sensible advice.
Awwww, just look at Petey! Poor Sally Holes and other shrubs though, I so hope they don’t need the chop.xxx
Still waiting to see how they do.