Wascally Wabbits

I have a client in Edina who is being terrorized by rabbits. These are not ordinary rabbits. Think the Monty Python and the Holy Grail rabbit, but they mercilessly subject your landscape to a slow death instead of ripping out your throat. A few weeks ago I was talking with the client when suddenly, mid-sentence, she points and says, "Oh, Jen! There is it! Get it!" In the neighbor's yard across the street was a rabbit placidly sitting under a tree. Even from that distance it looked bigger than a cat.

Over the winter they ate everything that was above the snow. The Euonymous, Spirea, Wigela, and even the Japanese maple were nibbled within an inch of their lives. The Aroborvitae were umbrellaed nearly three feet off the ground. And the branches and twigs were left on the ground. Solely to taunt us. I'm sure of it. Last week one started digging a hole under an already stressed Japanese lilac.

And then the willow. Oh, the poor willow. Last fall I had planted a Dwarf Arctic Blue willow hedge. Those blasted rabbits nibbled them down to the stump. But they started at either end of the hedge and worked their way in, so that the three willows in the middle still look somewhat normal. Odd. Maybe the middle was covered by a snowdrift. 

Yesterday I came into the backyard just in time to see a rabbit hop away from one of the willows. Oh, it is on.

So, at the end of the day, I sprayed everything with Liquid Fence. That stuff is foul on a good day, but on this occasion it was particularly ripe. When I say everything, I mean every thing. Even the plants they didn't touch over the winter. I am bound and determined to make my client's yard the worst-tasting in the neighborhood.

I just hope I have more success than Elmer Fudd.