Choosing Plants
While living with our native creatures can be frustrating, many native plants have survived in unprotected spaces for years. An Internet search on "critter resistant plants" with your state or city name will provide lists of plants that are distasteful to native animals.

Protecting Plants Outside of Fences
All new plantings outside of a rabbit-fenced area should be initially protected with fencing that excludes baby rabbits. Baby rabbits can get through fencing with 2" diameter holes.

Wrap all new tree trunks with 1/2" wire mesh (loosely) and remove after one or two years. Apple tree bark is very tasty. In general, rabbits are most attracted to the bark of rose family plants, especially fruit trees.

After mulching the planting hole surface, if the plant is outside a javelina-proof wall or fence, place rocks or pavers on top of the mulch to prevent a hungry javelina from digging for grubs.

Place Rosemary clippings on planting surfaces. Critters do not like the smell.

Plant distasteful plants between desirable ones to confuse the critters' noses.

Drought Makes Critters Desperate
When a drought goes on for more than four weeks, critters start to get desperate. All plants that are watered in a drought, even if once a month, need to be protected against javelina, rabbits, rats and mice. Once a plant is watered in a drought, javelina or rabbits will dig it up and eat it even though they would not touch it unwatered.

Fences, Walls, Containers and Garden Cages
Consider fencing your garden or part of your yard to keep javelina and large critters at bay. Heavy-duty, four-foot-high field fencing supported by six-foot-long iron T-posts provides relatively inexpensive, secure fencing. T-posts are most easily driven into hard ground after a long, heavy rain.

Four to eight foot high walls are used to keep out rabbits and javelina and offer wind protection. They do not keep out skunks.

It is common to build raised vegetable garden beds having walls 18-24" high using masonry blocks. These deter rabbits. The walls have a concrete footing one foot deep that discourages some burrowing animals. A capstone with rounded edges is placed on top to allow people to sit. The width of the bed is often two arms' length so that gardeners can sit and tend the entire bed using both sides. The raised bed, filled with soil, is open at the bottom and allows excess water from monsoon rains to drain quickly, avoiding waterlogged roots.

Plants can be placed in horse watering troughs or other tall containers that deter rabbits. The sides must be well protected from the sun to avoid overheating roots. The bottoms must have drainage holes to prevent soggy soil and fungal diseases. To keep burrowing animals out of the drainage holes, cover them with wire mesh, cover the mesh with gravel, then top with soil.

Some plants may have their roots eaten by burrowing animals. Hanging baskets have been used to avoid the problem. Another solution is to use a wire cage that is buried in the ground. The plant is placed inside the cage and the damage is limited to roots outside the cage.

Rabbits can be kept out of a garden area with 18-24" high chicken wire or 1" wire mesh fence.

Garden cages, using 1" wire mesh on sides and top, can keep out birds and critters smaller than javelina, with 1/2" wire mesh needed to keep out rats. Burrowing rats will also require 1/2" wire mesh on the bottoms of raised garden beds. Paving brick or stone can be used for interior walkways and the outer sides of the cage to control weeds and burrowing animals.

Keeping Birds Away
Birds can be deterred by using tulle fabric to cover a compact fruiting shrub or tree. Green tulle fabric can be ordered online in 54" wide, 40 yard long bolts. Tulle fabric is preferred over bird netting because it does not trap lizards, snakes or struggling birds. Bird netting may be needed, however, if a plant is large or not compact.

Fruit protection bags, usually made of a netting material, can be used to cover and hide individual large fruit or clusters of small fruit. They deter most bird pecks and insects.

If you are growing strawberries outside a cage, get strawberry shaped and sized rocks, and paint them to look like strawberries. Place them on the ground around your plants before the strawberries appear. Birds will peck at the rocks, thinking they are ripe fruit. They hate pecking hard objects and when your strawberries appear they will leave them alone, expecting them to be rock hard.