Cats are natural-born explorers and can cause major havoc to your garden by digging holes to use as litter boxes. Keep them out with physical barriers or other preventive strategies.
Install a cat-repelling mat such as CatScat which features long plastic spikes designed to make cat walking uncomfortable without hurting them, and grow cat-repelling herbs like rue, thyme, pennyroyal, and lemon thyme to repel cats from roaming freely in your yard.
Make the Ground Textured or Rough
Cats can cause significant damage to flowerbeds and gardens by digging in the dirt, littering around, and chewing plants. Luckily, there are safe ways to deter cats without using harmful repellents that harm cats.
Pine cones, pebbles and textured mulches can all make the ground less appealing to cats, while gardeners can spread prickly rose branches across their gardens to ward off nibblers. Russian Sage, Lavender, Citronella are plants with aromatic or pungent foliage which will deter cats. Blood meal is another natural fertilizer made of dried animal blood with an offensive scent for cats which can also help repel them when sprinkled over soil surfaces as an antidote.
Essential oils such as lavender, citronella, lemongrass and eucalyptus all repel cats by virtue of their scent. Dilute them and spray with a water bottle, or soak cotton balls in it before scattering around the garden. Other natural repellents include rubbing alcohol, vinegar and pepper spray – you could also consider commercial repellents that release an apple-scented liquid that tastes horrible for cats but won’t harm plants.
Install Netting
If you are having difficulty convincing neighbors or local cat owners to keep their felines indoors, or want to prevent cats from coming near your garden altogether, there are various strategies you can employ in order to deter cats. From making the garden unpleasant for cats to scaring them away altogether.
Put black-colored bird netting over areas where you wish to keep cats at bay. Additionally, use chicken wire, mesh produce bags from oranges or potatoes and prickly netting as ways of discouraging felines from entering.
Try planting plants that won’t attract cats, such as Russian sage, lavender, citronella or geraniums with fragrant foliage; sea holly and tropical grevillea plants also serve as effective deterrents against cats.
There are various motion-activated sprinklers and hoses with motion-sensitive spray nozzles designed to startle cats when they sense movement, or for an alternative option you could cover your soil with plastic bird cages, fruit cages or deer netting that is strong enough to withstand their climb over.
Don’t Feed the Cats
Cats who consume flower petals or plant materials such as grass often experience digestive problems like vomiting and diarrhea, weight loss and appetite suppression. If lily pollen is consumed in sufficient amounts, however, serious toxic reactions could ensue which could ultimately be life-threatening for their wellbeing.
Create areas of your garden that cats don’t like by using materials they dislike such as netting, black bird netting, chicken wire or mesh produce bags from oranges and potatoes. Also try placing twigs, coarse stone mulch or eggshells near garden beds as additional deterrents to cats.
Plant plants in your garden that will discourage cats from visiting, such as rue, chrysanthemums, lemon thyme, dill and lavender. Not only will these add beauty and natural pollinators, but spray your plants with nontoxic non-citrus garden spray available at most gardening stores or make yourself. An automatic water sprinkler activated by motion can also deter cats from visiting flower gardens; however it must be shut off quickly or it may damage them!
Train Your Cats
Feline visitors to your garden may cause havoc, damaging flowers and scattering soil, using your beds as litter boxes, etc. But there are ways you can keep cats out without harming the animals or damaging your plants.
As examples, various scents deter cats, including lavender, geranium, rosemary, lemon thyme and Absinth; roses with thorns and the Coleus canina (Scaredy Cat Plant). You can create sprays from plant oils which won’t harm cats but still work to deter them; for example eucalyptus lemon grass citronella work very effectively but need refreshing frequently due to dissipation in sunlight or rain.
Another way to deter cats is to make the ground unpleasant for them to walk on. Try placing chicken wire under mulch or embedding it in top layers of soil; this will make walking uncomfortable for cats and wildlife. Or create an uncomfortable “wall” using cut branches from prickly roses or pyracantha for added prickliness.