Felines can wreak havoc on flower gardens by digging, using it as their personal litter box, and nibbling at the blooms. Without an enclosure for their own cats, keeping stray or neighborhood felines away can be challenging.
Some methods require more care and attention, yet can offer lasting protection to your flowers. These include using chicken wire to cover flowerbeds, spreading coffee grounds in them and planting species that smell bad to cats.
Install Motion Sprinklers
Unwanted cats lingering in flower gardens can be an irritation. They may dig up bulbs you just added or nibble on plants you have taken time tending. There are various things you can do to reduce cat attraction in this space, including using motion-activated sprinklers to spray off potential cats invading it.
Sprinklers can effectively and responsibly use this strategy by spraying water as soon as a cat enters an area, thus dissuading it from coming back again. They dispense only when necessary – when cats step onto surfaces.
If you want to ensure the area is truly off limits, use a fence designed specifically to keep cats away from gardens and flower beds. With its vertical slats designed to prevent cats from climbing over and digging beneath the barrier, such as mothballs or aromatic herbs that emit strong odors that repel cats can also help keep cats at bay.
Plant Smelly Plants
Cats that roam flowerbeds can be more than an inconvenience; they can actually damage flowers and plants. However, you don’t need to spend money on expensive fencing or use harmful chemicals in order to keep these felines at bay from your garden. Here is how you can keep cats away.
There are a variety of smelly plants that can deter cats from your flowers, such as Coleus caninus with its strong odor that makes animals uncomfortable, or garlic chives that mimics cat urine’s scent and therefore drive most cats away.
Other plants with pleasant odors include lavender, the scaredy cat plant, lemon thyme and citronella. If the idea of adding these fragrant plants into your landscape doesn’t appeal to you, nontoxic scent-based repellents may help drive cats away more effectively than planting flowers directly. Rub objects with offensive aromas like garlic cloves or coffee grounds for an instantaneous solution; just remember they will need replacing often when their scent fades!
Use Rough Surfaces
Cats often enjoy lounging around flowerbeds, but their antics can damage them through digging, pooping and chewing. There are various humane and non-damaging solutions for keeping cats out of your garden that won’t harm the flowers such as noise deterrents, reflective objects, unpleasant scents and cat repellent spray.
Use rough surfaces in your flower garden to discourage cats from entering it, such as coarse ground sand or finely ground gravel, to make walking less uncomfortable for cats. Another method is installing a trellis or fence around it so as to block their pathway and protect the plants.
Some plant species are known to act as cat repellents, including thyme, rosemary and lemon thyme. Sea holly and globe thistle also work well at keeping cats at bay, while Coleus canina (commonly referred to as scaredy cat plant) has the capacity to deter cats with its pungent smell.
Water
Use of nontoxic sprays that smell offensive to cats, such as hot pepper spray, can be an effective deterrent against their visits to your flowers. Such spray will sting their nose and leave an unpleasant taste behind in their mouth – discouraging cats from coming near. While you could make such spray yourself from peppers, commercial options often contain waxes which help it stick better on surfaces.
Create rough surfaces that make cats uncomfortably uncomfortable to walk on, such as stones and sticks, such as stones or sticks. Some gardeners have used chicken wire as a barrier around their flower beds that they believe keeps cats out; you could also cover soil with latticed netting or lay out ground-level mesh cloth that’s designed to keep birds at bay in garden beds.
Other deterrents for cats could include a cat fence, mesh covering for pots and window boxes, scarecrows, coffee grounds or objects with strong odors; in addition to these tools you could train your cat away from your flowers by offering it other places in the yard to play and roam freely.