A Mini Garden for Your Bunny
Rabbits love fresh plants, but sometimes they love them too much and the poor plant doesn’t stand a chance. If only they’d learn just to nibble a little bit instead of eating it down the ground and then digging out the roots.
Drum roll please, introducing the super duper just bunny-just-nibble-a-bit planter that allows your bunny to browse without committing plant-homicide – as modelled by Scamp – do you think he looks a bit suspicious?
Okay yes, it’s a flower pot with an upside-down hanging basket on top, but it will let your bunny engage in a little bit of foraging from the comfort of their pen, or, if your bunnies have access to your garden, it is also an excellent way to give your pot plants enough protection to stay alive.
How to Make Your Bunny Garden
First you’ll need a flowerpot, or a bucket, or something similar that will contain soil. My top tip would be the flower buckets they sell cut flowers from. These are often disposed of rather than reused and if you ask your local florist nicely they may give you one for free – ours asks for 25p to charity.
I used this flower pot, which, even though it looks tiny, is about 12″/30cm cross.
Then you’ll need some soil to put in it. You could dig some out the garden – or just use multi-purpose compost from the garden centre. My top tip would be to add a handful of bunny poops in the bottom layer – these are great organic fertilizer and particularly great if you’re just using soil from your garden which might be low on nutrients. Which reminds me, I must do a post about my lovely compost.
Here’s some soil (it’s in a flower bucket in case you were wondering what they looked like):
You’ll also need a hanging basket. The trick is to find one about the same size as as your pot, ideally you want it to sit just inside the rim. They are often standard sizes like 12″, 14″ or 18″. Here’s mine – 12″ to fit my 12″ pot. Just unclip the chains, you won’t need them.
The final thing is something to grow in it! There are so many choices, you could try Nasturtiums, Pot Marigolds or Pansies if you wanted something pretty but safe if your bunny should nibble.
Some tasty looking nasturtiums!
Or you might like a mix of your rabbit’s herbs – parsley? Basil?
Bail grown from seed
Or perhaps a natural mix of grass and weeds such dandelion and thistle. You could collect seeds or look out on ebay etc. for people selling seed mixes aimed at rabbits/tortoises.
That's some long grass!
You can grow your plants from seed – sow them straight in your pot if you like, or buy plants if you want faster results. As your bunny nibbles around the edges you should end up with a nice bushy plant under the hanging basket which sticks occasional leaves out for your bunny to nibble on. Some plants like basil, actually do better if you pinch the tips out, so your bunny is really doing you a favour!
You’ll need to water your pot when it gets dry (so you might want to put a tray underneath) and most plants will need some sun so, if you have it indoors, pick a sunny spot or move it outside sometimes to get some light. As the basket protects the roots/base of the plant from being chewed to bits it should last months!
I think Scamp sniffed every blade of grass…
.. before he found the best one…
Tags: grow-your-own, rabbit-enrichment, Scamp
I will have to try that the next time I grow clover for Mr. Mick–I had it in a flat bed, and he trampled on more than he ate.
Hi, I stumbled across your website yesterday when I was ill in bed with woman flu, and spent the day reading your blogs back to 2007! You’ve got some great tips and info for bunny owners. We recently adopted a lionhead-dwarf cross bunny and I have read everything I can find on bunny-care, but your blogs have been the most helpful. Scamp is a very funny bunny too, very mischievious, just like our Flapjack! Today I made him a diggy box with a yellow pages ripped up, with some hidden herbs in – he loved it. We also bought him a tunnel just like Scamp’s recently, although Flapjack just likes to chew the velcro rather than crawl through it. I will be trying some bunny baking soon too (treats for the bunny, not actually cooking the bunny…!) Anyway, this is a bit long, but just writing to say keep blogging and thanks for the bunny-tips! X
Hi Emily, thanks for leaving a message. I’m really glad you are enjoying the posts/finding them helpful, and that Flapjack is having as much fun as Scamp does trying out his new toys (or just nibbling them)!
That is so cool! Will have to try it. Totally love that last photo of Scamp. He’s just so adorable.
Good idea! Theo loves his basil and will eat the entire plant in one sitting… him and Scamp would get along great!
Lol, start one end each and just chew chew chew!
lol, my bunny Blossom chews on the chives in the garden and there is actually no pointy ones left! Whereas Patch is fine just hopping about occasionally nibbling some grass. Your website is absolutely fantastic, I love it.
This is genius! I was just texting about my short-lived herb garden for Leo love. It was satisfying watching him merrily munch away at his planters of mints, sages, and thymes during afternoon outdoor romp time, yet I thought the garden would at least last for the spring season. I’ll need to figure out how to make the metal basket more secure. Leo love is a thrower. Maybe bury the basket slightly or even super glue some it to the pot?? Thanks again for starting a solution for me…
If you try the garden centre or online, you should be able to find ‘netting pegs’, they are usually plastic or metal and basically a stick with a hook on the end. You push them in the ground and the hook goes over whatever you are trying to keep secure e.g. the edge of a basket protecting your plants from a enthusiastic rabbit 🙂 I hope Leo enjoys the herb garden again this year!
Thank you! I will look into the netting pegs. I was actually looking for similar material to create a netting roof scenario in an outdoor play area to protect Leo from predator birds should I want to step away from our romp time together. I thought I would drape the netting from the roof of the house to the edges of two brick walls that help form a courtyard area. There’s still a chance that someone could stop by and move the large dog gate to give the #1 escape artist, Leo, too much freedom, though. It’d be nice to set that up for petsitting, too, as my current option does not do stairs, and he mostly lives downstairs. There is too much nice woodwork, and too many grumpy cats, upstairs for him. I even thought that I could place a trail cam in the courtyard area to help monitor his safety more (I liked your and Scamp’s review on surveilaince cameras!). Thanks again for your reply. I’ll dig deeper into your archived blogs for more helpful ideas. Happy gardening!