Will the bunnies eat my Italian parsley and/or basil?
Lindstrom
Will the bunnies eat my Italian parsley and/or basil? I would like to
plant both this season (for the first time) but if the rabbits like
them I will do it in a fenced area.
Are there particular varieties of basil that they might leave alone?
I'm gardening in Madison, WI.
james.d.mc swain
It has been my experience that bunnies eat anything that is green.
Well almost. First they nibbled off my blueberry buds and
Next came the lettuce carrot, pea and bean seedlings. I put 2"
square fencing up and the little ones (and some of the not so
little ones) went through it easily.
I got some relief from this constant nibbling by putting 1" wiring
around the raised beds as the seedlings came up.
After they finished
the Summer garden, they started in on the Fall and Winter
garden, namely, grape vines, broccoli, kale, winter wheat,
thornless blackberry vines, raspberry vines and oats.
Well at least I won't have to prune my grape vines.
So if in doubt fence it. I am thinking about an electric fence.
Good luck
dale mcswain
d...@cbnewsb.cb.att.com "Remove barriers that rob people of pride of
workmanship. Eliminate the annual rating or
merit system." Edward Deming
Arnold Zwicky
we always lose a fair amount of basil to the rabbits, but no parsley
that we notice.
i used to think this was only because there are plants available, like
basil in fact, that the rabbits like better than parsley. i'm not so
sure anymore. this december, when there were very few green growing
things left in our columbus (ohio) garden, what the rabbits went for
was not the kale, not the italian parsley, but...the california
poppies, which bravely threw out new growth despite the morning frosts
but then were trimmed back to neat little silver-green domes,
presumably by rabbits.
i also used to think that rabbits were not at all fond of the members
of the family papaveraceae, with their bitter milky sap. obviously
i'm not sure of that anymore either.
maybe we have exceptional rabbits. or it could be the mutant
squirrels, of course.
arnold
david.j.daulton
I live just north of Columbus, and rabbits are a plague here. Small viburnums,
chokeberry, etc., etc., must be protected with fencing over the winter, and
my yard looks like an exhibit of chicken-wire sculpture.
Anyway, last spring while I was doing my weekly volunteer work at the
Innis Gardens (Metropolitan Park) I invited some of my fellow volunteers to
come see my garden.
So three grey-haired retired ladies in volunteer shirts and sensible shoes
came over and were admiring my columbines, when out pops a bunny. It sat
there looking at us, chewing away, not at all concerned. When I yelled
"shoo", it hopped off a few feet and chewed some more.
So I picked up a rock and tossed it at it, intending to scare it into my
neighbor's yard, and--to my surprise--I broke its neck. So here it is,
thrashing around among the thyme, and the ladies are saying things like
"oh dear" and "I believe you hit it".
I have never hunted and I was totally unprepared. We all agreed
that I must "put it out of its misery", so my three guests stood behind the
Rosa centifolia while I attempted to dispatch it with a large flat rock.
Dispatching things is never as neat and tidy as you see on TV.
(For our foreign readers, I should qualify that as "American TV", which is
rather fixated in this area--I think Murphy Brown would have drawn less
attention if she had simply shot her baby, but I digress.)
In short, it was gross, and my guests kept saying, "is it over" and "can we
come out now", until I was done. In conclusion, the "garden tour from hell"
is now common knowledge among the Innis Gardens Metropolitan Gardens
volunteers, and invitations to see my garden are commonly met with "Okay, but
don't kill anything."
Dave Daulton, Columbus, Ohio
james.d.mc swain
> came over and were admiring my columbines, when out pops a bunny. It sat
> there looking at us, chewing away, not at all concerned. When I yelled
> "shoo", it hopped off a few feet and chewed some more.
>
> So I picked up a rock and tossed it at it, intending to scare it into my
> neighbor's yard, and--to my surprise--I broke its neck. So here it is,
> thrashing around among the thyme, and the ladies are saying things like
> "oh dear" and "I believe you hit it".
>
> I have never hunted and I was totally unprepared. We all agreed
> that I must "put it out of its misery", so my three guests stood behind the
> Rosa centifolia while I attempted to dispatch it with a large flat rock.
I too have had the "I didn't mean to kill it " experience with
a rabbit. I tossed a rock from about 15 feet or so intending to
scare it out of the garden and killed it instead.
I am in Granville, oh.
Dale McSwain
Bob Beer
>we plant both italian parsley and basil intensively, in large patches.
>we always lose a fair amount of basil to the rabbits, but no parsley
>that we notice.
>
deadly to rabbits, and one should never feed it to them. Maybe the
rabbits have a natural aversion to it? Other members of the apiaceae are
poisonous to humans, so I suppose it's possible.
Arnold Zwicky
bb...@stein.u.washington.edu (bob beer) writes:
>I have relatives who raise rabbits, and they told me that parsley is
>deadly to rabbits, and one should never feed it to them. Maybe the
>rabbits have a natural aversion to it? Other members of the apiaceae are
>poisonous to humans, so i suppose it's possible
drat! kay has left the country, and i'm away from my reference books!
but isn't parsley in the umbelliferae, along with (the pretty closely
related) carrots, celery, lovage, and anise?
granted, there are some nasties in the family - water hemlock, notably -
but that could be said about any botanical family of some size, no?
the real question is whether parsley is in fact bad news for bunnies.
arnold (who as a child had a pet rabbit but remembers little
about its dietary pleasures or threats)
Kathleen Much
>
>drat! kay has left the country, and i'm away from my reference books!
>but isn't parsley in the umbelliferae, along with (the pretty closely
>related) carrots, celery, lovage, and anise?
American Heritage dictionary to the rescue. "Parsley family. n. A
large family of aromatic herbs, the Umbelliferae (Apiaceae),
characterized by compound leaves and small flowers grouped in umbels
and including vegetables such as carrots, celery, dill, parsley, and
parsnips and spices such as anise, coriander, and cumin."
Rabbits certainly like carrots, but maybe not the rest of the family.
Our pet rabbits ate big holes in our lawn, and our wild ones
demolished all my ranunculus and anemones. Don't think they bothered
the parsley, though.
--
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Arnold Zwicky
kath...@casbs.Stanford.EDU (the excellently editorial kathleen much)
writes, not of cabbages and kings, but of umbelliferae and
papaveraceae, not to mention rabbits:
>Rabbits certainly like carrots, but maybe not the rest of the family.
>Our pet rabbits ate big holes in our lawn, and our wild ones
>demolished all my ranunculus and anemones. Don't think they bothered
>the parsley, though.
ah, ranunculus and anemones. so much for my
rabbits-off-the-poppy-family theory. well, eschscholzia californica
was already a counterexample.
working case by case like this is decidedly tedious. (i know, i,
know. you never promised that science would be easy.) doesn't anyone
on this group actually know something about rabbits? do we inquire
of rec.pets.rabbits (assuming there is such a group)?
arnold (besieged by rabbits in ohio, apparently like so many others
there)
Anne Powell
is a fence. Another option is your own bunny. This is great fun if you
have kids who would like a pet.
Growing up in the Chicago area, I had a pet rabbit whose hutch was located
above the compost heap. Every spring, Dad would fork the accumulated rabbit
donations into the garden. We never had any problems with other bunnies
damaging our crop. We discovered years later that rabbits are territorial,
and mark territory with dung. (Yes, it was a male rabbit.)
Keeping a rabbit is about the same amount of work as keeping a cat. They
live 3-7 years in captivity.
Anne
Lenard Harold
I'm afraid that they probably won't be much help as they think the rabbits
are more important than your garden.
I also have a rabbit problem, he live under my shed and eats my flowers.
Everything except the tulips so far. (flowers are not under shed)
My neighbor across the street suggested planting onions as the rabbits
don't seem to like the smell. She said that she had go success keeping
them out of her strawberries by planting them around the borders.
I am going to try this.
Len
Standard Disclamer, etc.
Bruce A. Moon
> >
> I have relatives who raise rabbits, and they told me that parsley is
> deadly to rabbits, and one should never feed it to them. Maybe the
> rabbits have a natural aversion to it? Other members of the apiaceae are
> poisonous to humans, so I suppose it's possible.
>
could be poisonous to rabbits. We feed it to our guinea pigs with no
problem; parsley is very high in vitamin C.
Bruce Moon
Rio Linda, CA
Bruce A. Moon
two blocks to our yard to see our caged Californians. Remember rabbits
naturally live in colonies. They may go out of their way to find company.