Keeping Rabbits Out of a Scottish Garden

A rabbit-proof fence is about digging, not height: 2.5cm mesh, 120 to 140cm high, with the bottom 30cm buried and the lower 15cm of that bent outward, because rabbits dig under and squeeze through gaps rather than jump. Before you build it, check it really is rabbits. Rabbit damage is clean-cut stems and grazed shoots low down, mostly under about 50cm, while deer tear and tug at what they browse, because they have no upper incisors and can't shear a stem. Slugs leave irregular holes in the leaf itself, with slime trails nearby.

Confirming it's rabbits, not something else

Rabbits graze herbaceous shoots down to ground level and nip foliage up to about 50cm, as high as they can reach standing on their hind legs. Alongside the clean-cut stems, look for:

• Bark gnawed from the base of young tree trunks and shrub stems, especially over winter when green growth is scarce.
• Shallow scrapes and holes dug into lawns and borders.
• Small, round, pea-sized droppings scattered across the damaged area, often in clusters.

If the damage is higher than about 50cm, or trunks are torn rather than cleanly gnawed, deer are the more likely culprit: keeping deer out of a Scottish garden covers that damage pattern. Both animals can visit the same garden on different nights, and if both signs turn up in one border, treat it as two exclusion jobs (buried mesh for rabbits, fence height for deer) rather than looking for one fix that covers both. If the leaf surface itself is pitted or holed with slime trails nearby, that is slugs or snails.

Fencing: buried depth matters most

The outward-turned skirt is the part gardeners most often skip, and it does the real work. A rabbit that starts digging straight down at the fence line meets mesh bent away from the fence before it gets under it, rather than a straight vertical edge it can tunnel beneath. A fence built to this spec still fails if a gate is left open or doesn't seal at the bottom. Gates and other entrances need to be just as rabbit-proof as the rest of the run, and kept shut when not in use.

Where the ground is thin, rocky or peaty and burying a 30cm skirt isn't practical, a paving slab or timber gravel board laid flat at the base of the fence and butted up tight to it does much the same job, because it gives a rabbit nothing to get a foothold under. An electric fence from an agricultural merchant is another option where digging pressure is severe. It is more of a smallholding-scale choice than a back-garden one, and needs the same care around pets and children as any electric fence.

For young plantings or single vulnerable specimens, a 90cm cylinder of netting or a tree guard or spiral around the trunk or crownThe base of a perennial plant where roots and shoots meet, often sold and planted as a ready-made dormant plant rather than grown from seed. Full definition →, with no burial, is usually enough, because rabbits are working at ground level on soft new growth. Keep netting taut and check it regularly for holes, so that animals don't get tangled in it.

A raised bed with solid sides is a shortcut for a vegetable plot. A rabbit still has to get over or under the sides, so a bed built tall enough and set on a solid base does much of the work of a buried skirt without fencing the whole garden. Where the problem is already severe and a full fence isn't realistic this season, individual netting cages around the worst-hit beds buy time while you plan a proper perimeter.

Repellents and home remedies

Home remedies are popular, but few have anything behind them.

Physical exclusion is the only method with a real specification behind it. Commercial repellents (aluminium ammonium sulphate products such as Vitax Stay Off and Growing Success Animal Repellent, or the calcium chloride-based Grazers G1) buy time but may not give complete protection, particularly in wet weather or when plants are growing actively. Aluminium ammonium sulphate products aren't suitable for edible plants close to harvest. Most spray-and-scatter home remedies have no documented evidence behind them.

Trapping and lethal control are outside what an ordinary garden needs, but Scots law has tightened on some methods people might reach for. Glue traps are illegal to use, supply or possess from 1 July 2026 under the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024, with fines of up to £40,000 or up to 12 months in prison. The same Act bans snares other than hand-operated ones.

Plants and crops rabbits go for

Rabbits feed on a very wide range of ornamental plants, fruit and vegetables. Hostas, lilies, crocus and young beech are particularly vulnerable, and lilies in particular are worth protecting. Bark-gnawing on young trees and shrubs is most likely over winter, when soft green growth is scarce and rabbits turn to woody material.

Plants that are usually left alone include hellebore, dahlia, lupin, iris and peony among herbaceous perennials, and bay (Laurus nobilis), butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii), rhododendron and azaleas, elder (Sambucus) and lilac (Syringa vulgaris) among shrubs and small trees. The vegetable side is short: potato, rhubarb and artichoke. Nothing is guaranteed to stay damage-free. Recently planted specimens of even the resistant plants, and soft spring growth, can be eaten, so protect anything new until it is established.

Why rabbit pressure swings from year to year

Rabbits are an introduced species in Scotland. The mountain hare is the only native member of the group that includes rabbits and hares. Myxomatosis is the clearest driver of boom-and-bust numbers: it reduced the rabbit population across Britain to a very low level in the 1950s, and it is still present, but it has become less virulent and kills a smaller proportion of rabbits. A local population knocked back by disease one season can rebound quickly, given how fast rabbits breed:

A garden with no rabbit problem this year isn't necessarily safe next year. Breeding starts in January, so fencing and netting checked and repaired before late winter catches the year's numbers as they build, not after.

Other garden wildlife

For night-time digging, droppings or damage that looks more opportunistic than grazing, see foxes and badgers in a Scottish garden. If it is bird feeders or bulbs being raided, red squirrels in your garden covers that pattern.

Common questions

Sources