Hares in the garden

09-03-2018
Tips and ideas

62-Hares in the garden
Protecting the garden from hares is one of the important concerns in the cold season. It is necessary to properly prepare for the meeting with these small animals, otherwise they can seriously spoil the young trees and shrubs.

In the spring, summer and early autumn, when there is a lot of greenery in the fields and forest belts, there is not much of a bunny running into your summer cottage. Yes, without a doubt, hares can get into the garden or garden if they find there a lot of juicy food in the form of seedlings and more mature cultivated plants, but this is extremely rare.

The same animals come running to villages and country cooperatives closer to winter, when it becomes more dangerous and hungry in their permanent habitat.

By and large, hares could live in the field, but they do not dig holes like rabbits. They build themselves a nest or Kubla in the low-lying parts of the relief, huddling under dry grass. But in the winter they are much more comfortable in our gardens, where it’s not so windy, you can hide behind a hayloft or in a mountain of dry weeds, and also walk at any time for lunch in the kindergarten. It is here that now remains the most delicious and juicy winter food - the bark of trees and the stems of younger plants.

62-Hares in the garden

Harm from hares in the garden

Making massive raids or coming alone to your kindergarten, the hares immediately try to destroy the young, on which the bark is more juicy and not so tough. Destroying the maximum of such a plant in the garden, the animals begin to destroy the bark on older trees. Since there is no favorite food for them now, they are gradually peeling off the lower layers of the bark of deciduous trees, then higher and higher, until they reach a height of one meter. Yes, hares feed on their hind legs and completely baring the most important part of any tree.

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It causes serious harm !!! Initially, the winter cold is hard on the "bare" tree, which begins to dry out and crack. The freezing itself affects garden trees very badly, because during frosts the unprotected tree dies quite often, and the one that does not bark on the trunk, with almost no exceptions.

Huge harm is also for the young kindergarten, because the hares destroy all the young branches and stems, which in the spring would be ready to give flowering and fruit, young foliage.

62-Hares in the garden

How to determine that the hares visited the territory

If we do not see the "eared pest" in the garden, it does not mean that it does not exist. Hares eat the bark of trees at night, very afraid of any rustles and movements. Due to poor vision, but very good hearing, which nature has replaced some of the flaws, the animal may not be seen, but at the same time continue to create trouble in the garden. Few gardeners can immediately understand with whom it is for him to fight, because without seeing the enemy, it is difficult to choose the method of his exile or destruction. But there are certain signs by which the hare activity in the garden can be recognized:

  • The shoots of young plants are eaten to the very root, as if someone had removed them with shears;
  • The bark on young shrubs and trees, and partly on mature trees, is absent at a height of up to one meter (or just eaten up, if the hares have visited recently);
  • The relief of the suburban area is partially spoiled by pits;
  • It is quite possible that you will meet other guest tracks in the garden, because the food eaten must go somewhere.

62-Hares in the garden

Each similar sign is a disturbing bell for the summer resident, and it is good if it sounds as early as possible. After all, if you notice signs of vital activity of the “eared” only along a slightly tarnished bark, and not a completely eaten garden, you can still save it!

Preventive measures, or how to scare hares

Not every summer resident decides to go out with a gun on a small animal, although there are plenty of hunting enthusiasts among us. But to open fire in our own yard is not an option at all, which means that we need to find more humane and civilized ways of pest control.

But it is more correct to do it immediately, not even destruction or protection, but prevention. Many correct measures will help keep the garden whole for the whole winter, without sin in the soul.

62-Hares in the garden

If you are, so to speak, a city dacha, and you have a plot mainly for recreation, then we are sure that you will not have so many trees in the garden. Of course, there are candid gardeners among urban residents, but more often it happens that we just do not care what we grow in the garden. If you are from such a number, then try to plant in the garden those crops, bushes and trees that are too tough for the pest. That is, exactly those trees that can please you with tasty fruits in the warm season, but the hares will not like it. It’s very easy to choose such ones - talk to the professionals from your cooperative, old-timers from the whole dacha territory, and they will surely give advice on the fact that local pests eat right away, and that they don’t pay attention to at all.

A very interesting way is to divert hares from their landings. To do this, you can choose plants that are to the pest to taste, and around the perimeter of the cottage, or even a little distance from the site, plant such plants. The hare raid is a transition to the first goal of saturation. If they like to eat on the glade of "distracting plants", then the "eared" may not reach your garden!

62-Hares in the garden

A good prevention method is cleanliness in the area. There should be a minimum of garbage, heaps with firewood (after all, they have a place in the drovnik), weeds, and extra shrubs. Thus, you will make a maximum overview for yourself, but for a hare there is a danger area, where he has no place to hide. On the plain, so to speak, in an open field, the animal feels very uncomfortable, and therefore even if there will be a lot of goodies, the pest may not come.

If these methods do not help, then you should use not only prevention, but also direct protection. The most correct use of these methods in the complex, so that your garden does not feel the edge, or rather the transition, when the pests, not taking preventive measures, begin to destroy the plants.

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How to protect the garden from hares

Today, there are many ways to limit the food hares on your site, and this means only one thing - they will not come to you for lunch. And it is true, because there will be nothing here, and just to attract the attention of the pests are not used to!

How to protect the plants in the garden from eating hares? There is nothing complicated if there is a quality fence around the suburban area. A stone fence, a brick fence or a chain-link fence is a sufficient barrier to pests, but sectional fences, the simplest ones, can let animals into the garden. Therefore, it is necessary to acquire a fine-meshed metal mesh, for example, an inexpensive chain-knife in coils, and to wrap it around those areas of the fence where access by hares is possible. It is clear that a few grids will not take a lot of mesh, but with large areas it can be quite expensive. Therefore, we recommend to pay attention to the following methods of protecting the garden from fluffy guests.

62-Hares in the garden

You can install the inner fence of the grid, but it is worth doing even in the warm season. The fruit garden should be protected with the same net, and it can be not expensive by pulling it along the posts from the pipe, corner, thick reinforcement. At the same time, the height of such a fence must be at least one meter. It is also worth knowing that a part of the grid, about 25-30 cm, needs to be stuck in the ground so that hares do not make a dig, and therefore the total width of the grid should be 130 cm.

If such measures do not suit you, you can buy plastic mesh or the same metal one for each tree separately in hardware and garden stores. You can also use a skein of small chain-link, cutting a piece for each tree.

In the same way, shrubs are saved, around which small fences are installed. But here it is necessary to take into account the fact that the supports of the fence must be strong, otherwise under the weight of the hare, who is hungry and climbs to the stalk of the bush, the grid can fall and open access to food.

There are shops and special plastic tubes to protect young trees, seedlings of this year. It often happens that there are no branches on the main trunk, and then the tube is simply put on it. If not, then only on the lower part, but for this purpose, a plastic unbendable tube is used, with a longitudinal slit along the entire length.

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Other methods of fighting hares in the dacha area

Each summer resident chooses which way to use. This may be scaring, physical protection against hares, chemical or more radical, with the use of lethal means. Therefore, we have no right to limit you, especially since we do not know the exact situation with hares on your site.

So, you can start with the simplest additional methods, and these are motion sensors. Often, such installations are purchased in finished form or made independently. But the principle of their work is the same. If the hare ran past such a sensor, a beep sounds instantaneously or a light comes on and the animal is rapidly swept away from the garden.

Another simple method for a summer resident, but very serious for a pest is a snare, a trap or a trap. Some of these accessories to fight can be lethal, but some just help to catch the animal to release it and more frighten.

62-Hares in the garden

You can use and chemicals that are produced in their own kitchen or bought on the market. At once it is not even chemistry, but the standard seasoning is black pepper. If you scatter it on the site, creating a certain border, the hare will not cross it. But it is better, or rather, more economical, to produce protection around each individual tree. Keep in mind that wet pepper does not work, which means that it will need to be updated frequently.

There are on sale and indeed chemical obstacles to the activity of pests in the garden - repellents. They work worse than pepper, but not always, because a hare, like any other creature, can gradually adapt to various external influences.

Also, it is possible to protect the trees from hare attacks with ruberoid, coils of wire and even old stockings. But all these methods should be applied on time, until the hares felt the taste of juicy bark.

Protection of the garden from hares (video)

It is also necessary to remember that the hares in the garden are shy, but very enterprising pests, and if you have poorly defended the garden or are too lazy to finish the job properly, the big-eared will surely find a loophole under the net or jump over the wet otpugivatel in the snow to get to food.