How to keep cats out of plants?

Question

There are two cats in my home and several plants. My cats have this habit of playing with my plants and digging up the dirt. They mostly attack one large pot with a ficus tree in it, and often eat the plant leaves. Can anyone tell me how I can keep the cats away from the plants in a way that will hurt neither the plants nor the cats?

Answer 1

My cats do not really like house plants, but they sure love the gastronomic delights of several cut flowers. I will let you in on the tricks we used and several other techniques you can employ to make your cats hate your plants.

1. Cats love walking on soft soil and will not walk on prickly surfaces.

You can use the following techniques to make the beds in your garden far less inviting and pricklier to your cats: Use twigs and cover your gardens, place it some inches apart all over the bed, push some prickly yard trappings such as pine cones into the soils surrounding your plants, lay some chicken wires across the beds. Alternatively, upcycle interlock produce bags from potatoes or onions by spreading them all over the garden and have them anchored with twigs. Ensure to increase the size of the hole all round your budding plants is required.

2. Keep away cats with scents.

Practice interplantation in your garden. Cats hate the smells from lavender, rue & pennyroyal, lemon thyme and Coleus, so make sure a few of these are planted all through the garden space. The added benefit here will be the attraction of pollinators and pest control through interplanting. Strong citrus smells keep cats away. To keep away every offending fur ball, keep peels scattered all over the garden.

The smell of natural human hair scare cats away. Keep your garden empty of brushes and take back your territory! But you have to keep away from moth balls-this is one common advice people ignore-these moth balls are quite toxic to both humans and cats.

3. Wash adequately to keep cats away from your garden.

If the cat has a specific location he/she likes visiting, make sure the location is thoroughly washed using a hose or using water from rain barrel. This will help get rid of the scent of spray and urine. Cats are known to choose that particular spot over and over-getting rid of the traces of their initial presence from your garden can help prevent further visits.

4. Create cat-scare spray.

Create a mixture of cat-scare spray. Add about 1 tsp of dried black pepper, dried mustard seeds and cinnamon in a closed spray bottle. Add some drops of crushed garlic clove and citrus essential oils. Fill to the brim with water, and spray on the garden beds. There is a popular belief that no cat can come near such combination of powerful and unmatched scents.

Answer 2

I have got some very bad kitties at home and they love digging and leaving heaps of mess on my garden bed. I have devised a means of using fruits and veggies net bag to keep my floor protected. I usually cut out a circular shape from the bag to suit the pot's diameter, before cutting down the middle. I use a clear packaging tape to tape every side to the brim of the pot as high as the plant's base around the middle. Those cats despise the netting. The netting allows me water and fertilize the plants without hitches and my cats hate the nets like hell.

Answer 3

I have read several questions about how to keep cats out of plants. It is quite simple though, just make use of tin foil. Keep the tin foil laid round the plant on a heap of dirt. Make sure you don't shove it down the dirt to avoid getting some mold. Simply lay it on the top. The cats will definitely hate it, and this will keep your plants safe. Additionally, you can find some colored foils if you do not fancy the common plain silver foil.