A stripping bunny, but not the kind one would expect

So, the snow receded last week, and we were able to see what damage the desperately hungry rabbit(s) have been doing. They may have killed a couple of my apple trees.

The lead photo is a dwarf apple tree—espaliered into a knee-high "fence" around my raised bed potager. It may not make it.

I once asked a Master Gardener's group the best way to murder a tree without leaving a trace of evidence. At the time, I had weed trees (Tree of Heaven) on a neighbor's side of a fence and would have done anything to be rid of them.

After much debate among themselves, they determined that girdling the tree near it's base to make it look like an animal stripped away the bark would be the best way to get away with murder. It would have to be stripped all the way around though. Trees' nourishment travels up through the bark. Girdling (stripping) the bark will kill it.

Crud.

The snow is gone, so I'm sure the rabbits have found plenty. other sources of food. I was going to wrap them with aluminum foil (the trees, not the rabbits). I will have to remember to wrap the trees with foil at the base for next winter.

And here's a five-year-old columnar apple tree. Stripped. In the background is dwarf pear tree (part of my diamond-shaped pear tree espalier) with some damage.

And here's a clematis vine—the vine separated from the roots. This will grow back though, so no long-term damage.

On the plus side, This Old House magazine used a photo of my house and shed in this month's issue, in an article on garden sheds. To see the article on my garden in the magazine, visit here.