Many gardeners enjoy keeping cats as companions, yet their presence can cause significant damage to flower gardens and other plants in their yard. If this is an issue for you, there are ways you can keep cats away from your flowers.
There are cat repellent sprays with natural ingredients that will make cats uncomfortable without harming them, while other methods include planting rue, pennyroyal, lemon thyme or coleus canina that act as repellent plants for cats.
Motion Sprinklers
Feline visitors to your flower garden, be they owned pets or feral felines, can be highly destructive. From digging holes to trampling the blooms and even eating them outright – protecting your flowers against these unwanted guests doesn’t need to be an endless battle.
Spraying cats with water may be one way to deter cats, but this may not be an effective long-term solution. For a more permanent approach, motion-triggered sprinklers could keep cats away from your flower garden.
As another method for cat-proofing your garden, planting cat-repelling plants such as rue, lavender, lemon thyme, pennyroyal and geraniums in it may help. Their scent alone should deter cats. You could also try scattering citrus peels around flowers or burying old orange and grapefruit peels; Coleus canina (commonly known as scaredy cat plant) has also been reported as deterring cats as well as other animals; commercial cat repelling sprays offer quick solutions.
Tape
Cats can make wonderful additions to families, but their natural curiosity often leads them into flowerbeds they shouldn’t be exploring. Luckily, there are ways you can keep cats out of flower gardens without harming or altering its aesthetic aesthetically.
One way of making the area uninviting for cats to enter is to make it unpleasant for them, such as adding pine cones or rocks as mulch material, or plastic forks tied together into an obstacle that will poke and prod any cats who attempt to dig into beds.
Another way is to plant pungent flowers and herbs that deter cats, such as rue, lavender, lemon thyme, pennyroyal and geraniums. You could also mix essential oils known to repel cats into water spray bottles and use these to spray your plants daily – this strategy will both keep them away while deterring harmful insects that might otherwise invade.
Scent Deterrents
Many people rely on scent deterrents to keep cats away from flower gardens, often at an affordable cost and with excellent results. Unfortunately, however, scent deterrents may alter the aroma of your garden too much and could compromise its integrity.
Citrus peels, mothballs and fabric softener sheets can all help make a garden smell unpleasant to cats. Another solution is covering it with mesh cloth which keeps cats out while looking unappetizing to them – layer it up with mulch or fine-grained sand to further safeguard your flowers!
There are various methods available to keep cats away from flower gardens, but it is essential not to use methods which cause harm or hinder normal activities of cats – for instance sprays with garlic or other pungent ingredients which could potentially poison the felines.
Mesh Cloth
Make your garden less appealing to cats by adding prickly materials such as pine cones, rough stones or plastic forks with tines pointing upward into your soil – these will prickle their feet and discourage them from entering your garden.
One option is to place chicken wire around your flower beds, which won’t exactly enhance their aesthetic but works quickly and effectively – it might even serve as a good temporary fix while waiting for your plants to bloom.
Tape can also be an easy and effective deterrent against cat infestation. Cats don’t like walking on tape because it sticks to their paws, so quickly learning that they should steer clear. This method works well in window boxes or any enclosed flower arrangements as it works great as part of larger deterrent measures like motion sprinklers or scent deterrents.