GARDENING staff at a top city hotel are hopping mad at ravenous rabbits who keep eating their prized blooms.

The Royal York Hotel has spent £20,000 overhauling its garden in preparation for this month's Ecofin conference, the meeting of European finance ministers.

Old rose bushes have been replaced with thousands of blue and yellow flowering plants - to match the colours of the EU flag.But in the run-up to the conference, staff face a battle to stop the rabbits munching their displays.

The hotel says the problem has been an ongoing one for years. After Ecofin, experts will be called in to help keep the bunnies at bay.

But, in the meantime, gardeners will keep a close watch on the flower beds to make sure they stay in tip-top condition during the conference.

Ministers and their entourages will be staying at the four-star hotel during the Ecofin weekend, which starts on March 20.Bosses are spending half-a-million pounds decorating the hotel in preparation for the conference.

General manager Greg McGarry said the rabbits had been an ongoing problem.

He said: "I don't think it's something you are ever going to cure. You might not have anything for a year or a month, or they take it upon themselves to eat away. All we can do is fill all the holes, but when we have done all that, no doubt they will start burrowing away."

He said it was important the hotel's gardens looked their best as the eyes of the world would be focused on the city during the weekend.

He said: "There are going to be lots of TV cameras. It will be good PR for the hotel. We are spending a lot of money inside doing all the refurbishment.

"From the garden point of view, we know the city council is spending a lot of money and we want to join in to show we are supporting the council and York."

For Ecofin, the City of York Council has planted displays on grass verges along Tadcaster Road and Shipton Road. Thousands of blue and yellow pansies will also be planted in hanging baskets, on traffic islands and in the pattern of the European flag in a bed next to Lendal Bridge.

The most intricate display will involve hundreds of tiny plants which will be arranged on a bed on Lendal Bridge in the pattern of York's city crest.

ECOFIN

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