How to Keep Animals Out of Flower Beds

Marigolds provide a beautiful and natural rabbit repellent in the garden.

Planting a vegetable or flower garden is an exciting spring or summer activity and leads to hours of gardening time spent outdoors. Gardeners around the world enjoy choosing, planting and tending their plants toward flowering and vegetable harvest. That joy can be quickly ruined, though, when critters like moles, gophers or rabbits enter the garden to dine on stems, leaves and roots. While some gardeners take the obvious route of putting a fence around the garden, others opt for a more subtle, natural approach.

Things You'll Need

• Shovel
• Gravel/Rocks/Cement/Chain link
• Plants such as narcissus, castor bean, garlic, onions, chives, marigolds

Instructions

1. Dig a 2-foot ditch around the border of the garden. Burrowing animals, like gophers and moles, come in through the ground, not over it, and won't stop for a fence on the surface. Fill this ditch with gravel, rocks or wet cement to keep animals from burrowing in.

2. Build a rock wall up out of the ditch if you're worried about rabbits. Use cement and decorative rocks to build the wall to 2 feet above ground level to give your garden a decorative effect and keep rabbits out. Another option is to sink 4-foot-tall chain link fence into the ditch and secure it by packing soil around the base. This is less decorative, but will stop rabbits, moles and gophers.

3. Plant herbs and flowers that naturally repel critters, as a garden border or as companion plants for your flowers. Garlic, onions, chives, narcissus, castor bean plants and marigolds all drive away rabbits and moles, while repelling or killing many insects and drawing butterflies and bees.

References

• Gardens Ablaze: Companion Plants for Pest Control
• How to Get Rid of Things: How to Get Rid of Moles