Garden Plants That Rabbits Eat

Rabbits have a hardy appetite and are not particularly choosy about the garden plants they eat. Your vegetable and flower gardens are filled with a variety of tempting fruits, vegetables and flowers that no hungry rabbit can resist. Rabbits do a lot of damage to crops unless they are kept away from them. Place a sturdy, 2-foot fence around your flower beds and vegetable gardens to keep rabbits from eating your plants.

Vegetables

Rabbits are quite happy during the spring and summer growing seasons. The same can't be said for gardeners who are witness to the destructive path left by hungry rabbits who have found their crops. Peas, beans, carrots and beets are favorites of the rabbit. It will eat the leaves and stems of the plant, sometimes pruning the plant down to the ground level. Rabbits also enjoy Swiss chard, lettuce, peppers, spinach and broccoli. Bunnies are less likely to eat cucumbers, onions, tomatoes and asparagus crops.

Flowers and Bulbs

Hungry rabbits like flowers as much as vegetables and eat the stems, leaves and young buds and blooms of your garden flowers. Petunias, zinnias, impatiens, pansies and snapdragon are just a few annuals rabbits like to eat. Perennial favorites include garden phlox, baby's breath and black-eyed Susan. Rabbits can't resist tulips and eat the new shoots during the early spring. Rabbits also eat the Dutch iris and crocus plants. Rabbits are not fond of daylily, pot marigolds, daffodils, hyacinth, wax begonias and lily of the valley

Shrubs

Rabbits do a lot of damage to shrubs, especially during the winter months. They gnaw at the bark, eat the stems and buds and snip off new saplings as they emerge through the snow. Rabbits favor hawthorn, rose of Sharon, lilac, forsythia and oak leaf hydrangea. Fruit-producing bushes are excellent food sources for rabbits. They eat the fruit, leaves and thin branches of the blackberry, raspberry and blueberry bushes. Rabbits don't like to eat butterfly bush, azaleas, yew, rhododendron and boxwood shrubs and usually leave them untouched unless they are starving.

Trees

Rabbits like to eat the bark of a variety of trees. Normally, they prefer smooth-barked trees over rough-barked trees. The smoother bark is easier for a rabbit to remove and eat. The rabbit likes red maple trees, all apple trees, cherry trees, sugar maple, mountain ash and dogwood trees. Rabbits are especially destructive to evergreen trees; they snip off young shoots and often cause severe damage and even death to older trees. Rabbits will normally avoid eating beech, spruce and birch trees.