It's nearly 26 years since we bought our house and started work on the garden. The property had been empty for some time, and both gardens – front and back – were overgrown with nettles and tangled with bindweed. There were no plants to salvage – just a small laburnum and an ancient apple tree, so we worked around those, clearing everything else. We dug and raked until we had a suitable patch for a lawn, which we grew from seed, then we bought and planted a few shrubs for some structure, and started to gradually add more plants.
Most plants added over the years have been grown from seeds or cuttings, or divided, from plants either in our garden or my parents' garden. It's now reached a point where most of the ground is covered by plants, so that very few weeds grow, and those that do can mostly be picked and fed to the bunnies.
We're guilty of feeding the easy option – supermarket greens/veggies and herbs, but when Mabel and Dijon were given access, via the patio doors, to their enclosure on the patio, we started picking tasty treats from around the garden to scatter in their area. The bunnies soon realised that if we were also outside, they only needed to stare at us or stretch up the bars of the enclosure, and we'd rush to fetch a few leaves for them! Here's Dijon enjoying some apple prunings, back in September – apple tree pruning time was his favourite time of year, so we were so happy that we pruned the tree early last year, so he had a chance to enjoy some leaves.
Dijon passed on the tip to Ebony, when she joined him in 2018, and now Ebony has taught Snoop to beg!
Our lawn is raised, a few steps up from the patio, so it would be tricky to allow the bunnies to access it securely and independently, and the laburnum overhangs the lawn, so there would be risk of them eating the toxic fallen leaves or seeds. Instead, they have some large planters of grass in their enclosure, but it doesn't stop them begging for more! Below are some of their favourites.
Some of their favourites are technically ‘weeds’ (eg. dandelions, herb Robert, wild strawberry plants) – in the past, we would have pulled them up, but now we allow them to grow so we can pick leaves for the bunnies. Many of the plants have self-seeded – oregano, lemon balm, calendula, and of course forget-me-nots, which are everywhere in the spring. The bay just appeared, probably a cutting dropped over the fence from next-door’s pruning, and the rosemary bushes were cuttings of my parents' plant. Not only are most of these rabbit-friendly plants inexpensive, but they're also great for bees, are quite hardy, and require very little maintenance!
We don't feed Ebony and Snoop any fruit from the garden, only leaves and branches... although occasionally they enjoy a couple of tiny wild strawberries!
Although few of these leaves grow during winter, we've started to pick and dry some of the leaves in summer, so that we can continue to feed garden leaves throughout the year.
We do have another rabbit feature in our garden, although it is not edible for bunnies...
