Unwanted cats lingering in your flower garden can be an enormously annoying inconvenience, but there are steps that you can take to repel them: spray them with cat repellent, plant cat-deterring plants and install motion sensing sprinklers.
Tin foil may also help. Some experts claim this solution works because cats dislike walking on it and eventually learn not to approach it again.
Mesh Cloth
Cats that venture onto your flower beds can trample them underfoot, turning your landscape into a litter box for felines. There are a number of physical and odor deterrents that can keep unwanted cats at bay without harming either them or other forms of wildlife in your garden.
Cover your flower beds with mesh cloth to prevent cats from digging or stepping on them, while selecting from various widths and heights available that best suit your flower beds. This type of barrier comes in different widths and heights so it will fit seamlessly.
Other physical barriers may include planting bamboo sticks in the ground to make it difficult for cats to lounge on the soil, or using heavy-gauge wire which you can bend into a cloche shape to guard specific plantings like flower beds and vegetable patches according to RSPB recommendations.
If you want to avoid physical barriers, try using safe odor or sound deterrents instead. Citrus fruits, live rue plants, cayenne pepper, coffee grounds, pipe tobacco and eucalyptus or peppermint oils can all be effective ways of repelling cats from approaching.
Coffee Grounds
Cats can cause irreparable damage to a flower garden by digging up plants, destroying blooms, and even urinating on them. However, you can protect both flowers and gardens using humane methods that don’t harm felines.
Organic cat-repelling sprays can help deter cats from wandering into your flower beds, keeping the citrus or lavender fragrances at bay.
Natural solutions to deter cats include using citrus peels, essential oil or fabric softener sheets to deter felines from your garden and plants that you wish to remain free from feline intrusion. You could also place carpet runners with plastic spikes (such as those made by CatScat) where cats frequently loiter in your garden.
Plant herbs and flowers known to deter cats in your garden, such as rosemary, lemon thyme, rue and lavender. You can place these around either the center or perimeter.
Scarecrow
Unwanted cats roaming your flower beds can be a nuisance. Their digging (and its accompanying deposits), using flowers as soft napping spots and chewing up leaves and stems are just some of their annoying habits. But there are safe solutions available to stop these visits to your garden from taking place.
As one effective solution to keeping cats away from your flowers is using a motion activated sprinkler like the Contech ScareCrow, which sprays a mist of water when it detects movement and works day and night to deter cats, other animals such as dogs, foxes and rabbits as well. This device can easily be installed and works both day and night to protect flowers!
Planting herbs that repel cats is one way to keep them out of your garden. Rosemary is especially effective, as cats don’t like its pungent aroma. Eucalyptus, lavender, rue and pennyroyal are other suitable plants. Other natural deterrents that could work include netting or chicken wire to prevent cats from entering and layer of sharp materials like pine cones, holly cuttings, egg shells or stone mulch which provide natural deterrence against cats.
Scents
cats don’t like strong scents that cause their sensitive noses to wrinkle, so there are various household and garden products designed to keep odors at bay from flower and vegetable gardens. Citrus peels are often successful, though you must keep replacing them since their scent dissipates quickly. Other pungent odors cats dislike include garlic, vinegar, sage, lavender eucalyptus oil or even rubbing alcohol odors.
Use a mixture of dried mustard, coffee grounds and rosemary as an effective cat repellent while remaining kind to the environment. Or alternatively use sprays made of lemongrass, menthol, eucalyptus oil, thyme or hot peppers as repellents against cats from plants.
Marigolds and rue are said to deter cats from gardens; so is Coleus canina (Scaredy Cat Coleus), which emits an unpleasant stench when touched or bruised. But it remains uncertain whether these plants actually repel cats; perhaps they simply drive them away by increasing competition for food and shelter resources.