Rabbit Damage: Can This Plant Be Saved?
As we dig out from this very snowy winter, we’re seeing lots of photos of rabbit damage to trees and shrubs. Whether fruit trees, evergreens or shrubs, the bunnies have been hungry this winter and they’ve been stripping the bark as high as our very tall snow drifts.
“This winter has been brutal on plants with rabbit damage,” said Travis McDonald, certified arborist with Davey Tree Expert Co. in Eden Prairie, who we contacted about what to do about rabbit damage. “I haven’t seen it this bad in 10 years.”
The damage is deadly when rabbits “girdle” a tree all the way around (see photos in this post). Yikes! Girdling happens when the flow of nutrients and water to the tree is interrupted due to damage or removal of tree bark and the phloem and cambian layers under the bark. All of the nutrients that keep a tree healthy flow just under the bark in those layers. (This is the light-colored wood you see after the bark is removed.)
If a tree is improperly planted, it can be girdled by its own roots, which wrap around the trunk of the tree at its base or just underground and essentially choke it. Rabbit damage rips the protective bark off the tree.
Like deer, hungry rabbits will eat a variety of plants, but among their favorites are crabapples, plums, cherries and other fruit trees, maples, yews, burning bush, serviceberries and arborvitae as well as viburnums, hydrangeas and smokebush. A sure sign that the problem with your tree or shrub is rabbits is the presence of pea-sized rabbit poop near the plant.
Can It Be Saved?
Let’s start with shrubs. Shrubs grow from the base and have multiple branches. With many shrubs—dogwood, viburnum, ninebark—you can cut the plant down to good bark near the roots and let it re-grow from there. You will want to do some pruning as it grows and it may take a couple of years, but your shrub will grow back. Sometimes it even flowers in the first year after severe pruning.
Trees are another matter. A tree that is girdled all the way around will not survive long-term, McDonald said. It might leaf out this year but “any stress and that tree will die.” If a tree has in-tact bark around 25 percent or more of its trunk, it can survive, he said.
To give a damaged tree the best chance for recovery, water it consistently and amply throughout the season and into fall. Appropriate fertilizer for the type of tree you have is also a good idea, McDonald said. If the tree is large or precious to you and is not 100 percent girdled, contact an arborist about your options. McDonald sometimes recommends a trunk application of potassium polyphosphite, which stimulates the tree’s natural healing responses and helps close wounds quicker.
Preventative Measures
Preventing rabbit damage is the best way to ensure healthy trees and shrubs in your yard and garden. Rabbits don’t like the texture of burlap, so many tree owners will wrap the trunks of their trees with burlap in the fall. You can also fence around the tree trunk or shrub with chicken wire to discourage chewing. Be sure to add the protections above the highest likely snow line!
There are sprays for foliage that can be applied to discourage rabbit and deer chewing as well, but most sprays available to homeowners wear off within a couple of weeks.
General tree health going into winter is also important. “The biggest thing in the winter months is to give trees a deep watering in fall,” McDonald said.
Rabbit numbers are a factor in how many plants are damaged. A lack of natural predators in some areas has increased populations. Fencing around your entire property and live trapping are among the options for dealing with too many rabbits.
For more on damage to shrubs and fruit trees and options to save the plant, check out this video.
Mary Lahr Schier is a Minnesota-based garden writer.
Excellent timing on this, Mary. They got to my honeycrisp apple tree so knowing that 25% rule will be a good way to gauge whether to try and save it. I did have a cage around it but the snow got so high they craned their little necks above the cage and girdled it. Luckily I caught them so I don’t think it’s quite 100%.
This was the worst rabbit damage I’ve seen in at least 14 years – they have always gone after smaller branches on our arbor vitae but this year girdled many of the very large mature trunks which have never been targeted. It is upsetting and will no doubt impact our entire hedgerow lining the back and side of our Minneapolis lot. However, I am disappointed to see you suggesting live trapping. Any wildlife rehab center and others educated in wildlife will tell you that it is essentially a euphemism because live trapped “relocated” animals often die wherever they are dumped off as they are then left in a foreign space competing with what animals are already there…there are multiple considerations as to why it is a poor choice. https://www.paws.org/resources/relocating-wildlife/
Agree, this is not only inhumane but ultimately ineffective, and if you are gardening for wildlife as we sll should be doing, it is unethical as well.
I’ve been wrapping my cardigan trees with plastic package wrapping to keep deer from eating them, I then remove wrap in spring , it’s been working very well.
I recommend getting a good quality air rifle and eating those destructive varmints. They are very tasty and will never be in danger of going extinct. They breed like rabbits.
Yes, rabbits were exceptionally busy feeding this winter, and it’s great to have this info. Thank you!
Can we address squirrels next? These rats with bushy tails never stop destroying my plants, and will do so whether they want to eat the plant or just tear it up. Nothing is safe from their greedy little paws: not plants in the ground, in raised beds, or even in window box planters. Everything is fair game for these clever and abundant rodents and nothing deters them for long. Help!
Check out this popular blog post about outsmarting squirrels, Kathryn! https://northerngardener.org/outsmart-squirrels/
The rabbits did a real number on our dwarf lilacs this year, which they’ve never bothered in the 22 years we’ve lived in this house. Should we prune now while they’re dormant, or once they start to bud so we can tell what parts survived and what didn’t?
I have never before seen the destruction rabbits did to my yard this year.
It is heartbreaking and infuriating (I know the rabbits are just behaving like starving rabbits)
They destroyed two large yews by pulling off the needles and chewing off the bark.
I covered the yews I always did , but this year they went to town on all of them.
What to do?
Not plant evergreens?
Seems ridiculous.
But covering them so much also effects how the yard looks.
Rent a hawk or two? (vengeful thoughts)
I think their numbers need to be controlled.
I heard they don’t eat junipers
Assuming you have a live-trapped nuisance rabbit, what can you do with it?
I relocate the live trapped rabbits to a nature park nearby, and I don’t believe it is either unethical or inhumane as others have posted. It’s certainly a better option than shooting or drowning the trapped animal, if you are opposed to killing a nuisance animal. But if you do choose to shoot a rabbit that is causing costly damage in your garden, you certainly have the right.
Our chestnut crab has the lowest limb completely girdled.The snow here was that deep this winter. What would you suggest doing in this case.