Do wild little brown bunnies dig and eat lily bulbs or stems? Asking for a friend...

Stems and leaves, yes. Bulbs and bunnies, I would not think so but with the environment getting more and more stressed I have also noticed changes in animal feeding behaviors. So I suppose that anything is possible these days.

Maybe I can put out a bowl of lettuce away from the lilies? I don't think it is going away. They aren't supposed to be living in the middle of town are they? I chased it around and around but it just weaved all around the stems and I didn't have my pollen clothes on. Second time I've seen it. Wish the rental neighbor would keep his backyard field cut. All he did was one run down the fence line.

Believe me, Connie, any kind of stem is bunny food... I had some L. pumilum seed capsules ripening just a few weeks ago. They were ripening nicely and then one day the leaves and capsules were all gone. Bunny popcorn I presume. I don't see then eating bulbs though. Mice and voles here will munch on lily bulbs that protrude through or are near the surface in the spring, and that is a problem, and they will dig into my pots in the cold-frames during the winter. I have found, for the latter problem, that mouse traps and glace cherries work very well. If, like me, you like fruit cakes you may inevitably have a tub if indestructible and un-aging sticky glace cherries. They work well, as the cherries are sticky enough that the mouse has to give it a good tug to get it off the trap.... You can see that I have given this a lot of thought. Various forms of "rabbit scram" work quite well to deter bunnies; essentially these are some combination of dried blood and pepper. They are effective, especially when the rabbits are young. Once the lilies get taller, they just tend to munch on the lower leaves (not the stems) or move onto my bedding pants . Hope this helps.

Thanks Steve for your optimism and ideas. I hate to say this but if this is how it is going to be here I think it will be time to give up on growing lilies. It would be more work than I am willing to put into it. I'm in the middle of a city and never had rabbits here. The worst pest I have had I (and still have) are neighbors' cats that are left to their own vices outside. That means cat crap in the gardens and lawn.

Most of the lilies here look like heck from the strong sun and heat. Some Asiatics had their leaves literally burnt off. Three more days of 100 degrees then next week it cools to the balmy mid 80s. Looking forward to it...

The liquid form of PlantSkydd works well for me against rabbits and deer.

Thanks Rj. Is Plantskydd stinky? Thought I read that somewhere in the forums...

crawgarden… recommend Plantskyyd to me last spring and for the first time in years all my flowering roses, shrubs, and fruit trees are all doing great.
It's not stinky I use the granules…
Rj….Thank you 🙏🏽 again…

Connie it does smell (good if you have a neighbor you don't esp like😀)
Read the directions, do not apply on a windy day, you need to have dry foliage and will remain so for about 24 hours. The directions say to re apply after a rain, if it was applied when it was dry and you have 24 hours of a dry period, I have found that it is not necessary.
I also have a sprayer bottle the kind you can get at any hardware store and fill it with water. After I have sprayed the plants, I put the sprayer hardware in the bottle of water and spray a little to clean out the sprayer. I also put the original cap back on the bottle, until I need it again. Try to get all of the foil off of the top or it will leak when you shake it up, I usually just put an old sock around the top when I spray.

I also will spray it around the plant vs on the plant and have had good luck. On tall plants before they bloom I will spray the plant to keep the deer from eating the buds.

Is it 100%, no but I would estimate about 95%

I use Plantskydd and have for years. Somehow all this time I missed you can
Dip your bulbs in the solution, let it dry 24 hours then plant. Supposedly the chipmunks voles and mice won't eat the bulbs then. That would solve a lot of problems here!

Plantskydd stinks badly for about 48 hours. Then the only ones who can smell it are the critters you are trying to keep away. It lasts 3 months. I tend to reapply at 2 months and 3 weeks. Because if you miss the window, and I have once, all bets are off.

With bulb eaters, believe me, I have considered giving up. It can seem futile but also I have this thing inside me saying I'm not letting a chipmunk outsmart me.

Squirrels seem to dig up my newly planted lily bulbs, they usually don't eat them just destroy the bulb. I tried spraying with some deer repellant but it doesn't always work. I put bricks over newly planted bulbs for a few months to protect them but sometimes forget to remove them. They also ate a large hole in a plastic garbage can lid where i keep bird seed.
Dam tree rats.

When I bait for rabbits in a live trap, I use a wedge of apple. Way better than lettuce or carrots for me.

Steve, are glace cherries for voles, or mice, or both? Peanut butter never fails for mice, but I've always wondered what would work for voles...

Rabbits seem to prefer the very narrow, thin lily leaves over others. I am very fortunate that I now have two neighbors that keep the rabbit population under control. Hardly ever have to use my trap anymore. Before, I had to fence my gardens until mid summer. Never saw rabbits eat lily bulbs. I've had mice eat bulbs in the garage over winter. That one year was quite disastrous.

Voles will trap on peanut butter, but you want to put it out just before nightfall, or the ants discover it.

You have to be careful with open for business traps, birds can get in there too, they love fruit and peanut butter. Don't ask me how I know.

Clear felling rabbits👎☹️

Living in the woods, I have found that any animal if hungry enough will eat anything. Deer got my milkweeds this year. Happily, have a cougar that visits me every 3-4 weeks, less deer then.

So far so good; I haven't seen the little brown bunny again. But there are a lot of places for it to hide...

Connie, Dianne also had a brown bunny running around her garden. This was how she stopped it the non-killing way:
https://garden.org/thread/view...

And if you want to do it the killing way, a .22 should suffice. If your county doesn't allow firearm shooting, then a 1000 FPS air rifle would work. I would do it a non-killing way though, since this time of year you're not suppose to eat bunnies (tularemia is common in Summer), and if I kill something like a rabbit, it would feel like a waste of life to me if I were to just throw the body away. But of course, if your garden depends on it, I wouldn't condemn you for throwing the body away.

OK, now I know what little brown bunny is up to... I caught him in the act this afternoon... he was in the lily bed and his jaws were going real fast so I just stepped back a bit and watched.

Little brown bunny was eating my weeds !!! I couldn't believe it! I saw him grab a hawkweed type of weed at the base and worked it right up the stem and then sucked in the seed head. Then on to some wild morning glory. I know he won't make a big difference as my lily bed got totally overgrown with weeds this year. But to him it is a big salad bowl. Just hoping those seeds get digested

Good little brown bunny. I should try to get a photo...

You should get a pic Connie. I never am lucky enough to have good trouble in my garden.