Keep Rabbits Out Of Your Garden With The Help Of A Spice Cabinet Essential

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If you have a rabbit problem in your yard, they will inevitably find their way into your garden. Although they appear innocuous and can be fun to watch, make no mistake — rabbits can quickly destroy your garden. However, you need not resort to inhumane methods or overly exert yourself to prevent them from eating your plants. Instead, you can rely on cinnamon for a safe and simple way to keep rabbits out of your garden.

Cinnamon makes rabbits wary in large part because of the very things that makes it so appealing to most humans — its spiciness and distinctive aroma. The natural chemical compounds responsible for those traits, cinnamaldehyde and eugenol, repulse rabbits. Unlike humans, rabbits find cinnamon off-putting and irritating. Their sensitive noses and nasal passages can be overwhelmed and inflamed from inhaling the spice.

As a bonus, rabbits aren't the only garden pest repelled by using cinnamon in your garden. Ants, rats, and slugs are some of the other common garden pests that have an adverse relationship with the kitchen staple. Additionally, cinnamon, particularly cinnamon oil, provides a number of other benefits to your garden such as encouraging root growth and preventing plant rust.

There are a few different ways to use cinnamon as a rabbit repellent. The simplest is to sprinkle ground cinnamon around the perimeter of the garden, and around the base of each plant. While the brand or type of cinnamon won't matter much, the quantity will, as it will need to be reapplied regularly, particularly after rain or strong winds.

Cinnamon oil can also be used to ward off rabbits. While cinnamon oil has been successfully tested as an insecticide, there hasn't been a lot of data on its effectiveness on rabbits. But anecdotally, cinnamon as a lagomorph repellent is well supported. While it may work as an irritant, it is a nontoxic approach for ridding your garden of rabbits, so it can't hurt to try. One method is to fill small jars or containers with a mix of water and something like Kukka cinnamon essential oil, placing the jars around the perimeter of your yard and garden, like diffusers. To do this, add a few drops of cinnamon oil per quart of water. You can also place this mix in a mister or handheld sprayer and apply it around the perimeter of your garden and near the base of plants. It's important that the cinnamon oil be diluted, as it can harm plants if applied at full strength.