Selfsufficientish.com

Hello,

I have a piece of woodland 150 or so miles from where I live. Not very practical.

I want to plant some willow in order to coppice it and also to create some living willow sculptures. My concern is that I will plant the willow and come back a couple of months later to find it has been nibbled to death by the rabbits and deer. I can't visit it much more often than every couple of months.

I don't want to have ot fork out for rabbit guards as the cost is too much when you have a lot of trees to plant.

So two questions:

a) Are there any homemade rabbit guards that people have used and found work?

b) Would it be possible to plant willow into containers and then transplant them once they are a metre or so high? Is this big enough to avoid rabbit damage?

Thanks in advance!

Peter

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong ...

There are a couple of willow holts not a mile from me. It's the standard stuff - lengths of willow are pushed into the ground and then left to grow for a year. I've never seen any protection at all for the willows, despite there being lots of rabbits around. Nor have I seen any evidence of rabbit damage. Maybe rabbits don't eat willow (unless they have a headache ).

As I say, maybe someone knows the real ins and outs ...

Mike

if that is the case then I am a very happy bunny! (If you'll excuse the pun).

When I saw lengths of willow on eBay there was a warning that rabbit guards are needed, (even if the seller isn't selling them).

Rabbits will eat any whips,especially in the depths of winter,the stanandard method of protecting a decent size planting would be to rabbit-fence the perimeter rather than put gaurds on each tree.At your distance you may have a prob.You dont say how big the area is,but say 2 acres min,it might be worth talking to a local in search of some rough shooting,or(if warrens are on your land) some ferreting enthusiasts. Best Wishes.

Yes - after looking around, I discover that the buggers absolutely adore chewing willow. But I'm still faced with a couple of holts with no rabbit protection. Maybe because it's planted in Spring when there's enough other food around?

Mike

You can get spiral rabbit guards here for ~30p each all from recycled plastic. http://www.acorn-planting-products.com/ ... guards.php

We use these for planting new coppice areas.

Thank you for all the advice. I'll look into those rabbit guards - they certainly seem cheaper than I have seen elsewhere, and recycled too.