Rabbits eating tulip leaves (2024)

Rabbits chewed off these tulip leaves.

Q: We have tulips coming up, and something is eating them. My best guess is rabbits, as we have seen a cottontail out back. I'm attaching photos of the damage. Any suggestions you may have as to how to protect them will be appreciated.

A: That's rabbit chewing, alright. Rabbits love tulip leaves almost as much as deer like the flower buds and rodents like the bulbs. It's almost a miracle when tulips survive all of that to bloom.

Other than fencing off the area (the least ornamental option), you can protect the tulips with repellents.

Garden centers sell a variety of brands that repel mainly by scent -- either nasty odors they don't like or scents of predators that like rabbits for lunch. Pick from liquids such as Plantskydd, Liquid Fence, Rabbit Stopper and DeFence or granular products such as Shake Away or Rabbit Scram.

There's also Hot Pepper Wax and similar hot-pepper-based sprays that use the capsaicin in hot peppers to chase rabbits away once they sample a hot leaf or two.

And some people have success by scattering hair from people or dogs, scattering blood meal around the bed, or dusting the area with black pepper, cayenne pepper or baby powder.

You'll probably need to reapply any of those every few days and especially after a rain.

Rabbit damage is fairly easy to recognize because they make sharp cuts -- almost like someone has trimmed the plants with scissors.

While that damage isn't good for the long-term health of tulips, there's still a very good chance flower stalks will emerge and give you flowers (assuming nothing comes along to eat those, too).