Cats

Now I love my 4 cats...but come on

The older cat just lays inbetween flowers fine...The 3 young kittens (6-7months old) are past the diving in my flowers now they think the mulched beds are there litter boxes.

They are outside cats. They pee and poop everywhere in my flowers. It is mostly peeing that I have a problem with. I layed mulch in a new bed raked it out evenly and the cats are messing it up, and are killing flowers with their urine.

I have heard of cheyenne/red pepper but that it awful expensive for large garden areas...Ideas?

Make a solution with the cayenne and spray. No idea if it works but a solution would be less expensive than sprinkling dry pepper. Years ago I sprinkled white pepper to ward off bunnies from a few prized plants. Not sure it worked but the plants survived :)

~Sharon

You may want to try to make it uncomfortable in those flower bed areas by surrounding your plants with crushed sea shells -- this might also raise the pH in your soil. Some nurseries sell this in bags. You could also try to place thorny rose bush branches around the flowers too. Hope this helps. Snug, :o)

Do not know if it will work outside but I use citrus (orange . lemon) peels to keep them out of my large houseplant pots.

Another idea that works for me is placing a piece of chicken wire under you mulch. Once they have stepped on it a few times they will avoid it completely. You only need to put in a strip along the front part of your bed. The added plus to this is that you don't have to replace it every year.

The orange peels worked for me too! I have scattered it under my lime tree to deter ants, and the cats have abandoned that area. I'll have to try the lemon peel, as I have a tree full of those. I wonder if it is the scent or the dried pieces that they don't like, or both.

I have one cat that will always drink from my water glass unless I squeeze a bit of lemon in it.She sniffs and makes a face(the squinty eye thing)

You may not have sweet gum trees in your yard or in your area and, if you do, you may not want them in your beds, but they are so prickly that it doesn't take long for cats to find another "litter box".

My cats are indoor only but the neighborhood abounds in strays and ferals.
I have had good results indoor and out with using red lava rock as top mulch/decoration.
None so far will walk on it or dig in it. Maybe just a wide band around the bed will do the trick.
It's permanent, cleans up with the hose if muddy from rain splash (a real concern here in Oregon), and looks nice too.
As a bonus, the slugs won't crawl on it either!

I know what doesn't work: mothballs. Forgot where I heard that idea, but I added them liberally to my mulch one year, and the cats just pushed it aside.

Any idea on the cayenne solution what the ratio is? I've worked with my soil to get it nice and fluffy and now it's a litter box for a feral cat. And it's right next to my patio which makes it worse. And I have dried lemon peels which I can try as well. The digging is actually uprooting some recently planted annuals.

I had just finished planting a bed of imapatiens, turned around for a second to put my shovel down and take off my gloves. I turned back around to see one of our kitties lying between the plants! Last year, we put large rocks on every bare spot of soil between the plants to keep the squirrels from digging, so I put the rocks down again. I think that makes for an uncomfortable kitty bed, too, as I see no smashed plants, and it's been a few days.
The rocks are larger than the 'river pebbles', and I put the odd bumpy sides facing up. My son stood some of them on end in the soil, lol.
We love the kitties, but....

When I read about citrus peel I decided to try it, and my three cats imediatly stopped using that spot! I also used it where a feral cat was nesting, same result. I have a lemon tree that drops fruit every time I water, so I just peel the fallen fruit and spread it as needed. No need for "dried" peel.

Ah, not access to many rocks here. I thought of the dried peel because I have a big bag of dried Meyer lemon peels in the freezer as opposed to buying lemons at the store.

They never bother my mint bed...wonder if planting mints amongst all the plants would work? Of course, mints need sun.

I love the smell of mint but it's a little invasive for me. The mint can take some shade but it's almost all shade around the patio. I sometimes grow it in a pot.

I know this is an old thread but I was looking for something else and ran into this one :)

Try this:
Get you a water bottle and every time your cats go in the bed and you see them squirt them, I have had that problem this year and just don’t understand why my cat has taken to going in the bed in the side yard she did go in my beds when she first came here but for the last two years she has been using the litter boxes in the garages or coming in the house to potty and eat several times a day thank goodness I’m here to let her do that lol

Put your kitties a litter box outside somewhere like the garage where I keep mine I have three garages and a couple of litter boxes are in every one of them I started out a couple of years ago with one litter box in every bed and now she is down to the ones in the garages when she doesn’t come in the house to potty :) Even the feral cats go in them I have some that sleep in one of my garages that is open lattice around the sides. I guess I’m going to have to start keeping a litter box in the side yard again until I break mine of this habit AGAIN lol

We had an outside tom move in next door so I think that’s why she is going in the side yard now to mark her territory maybe, she doesn’t do it anymore in my other beds I don’t know that much about cats she is my first. Thing is when it rains you have to take the litter box up that stuff is really nasty when it gets wet LOL

The spray bottle works too if your cat is laying on your plants and they will still love you afterwards :) They may be leary of you at first after you spray them but they come around lol Really you only have to spray them once then when they hear the spray bottle or see it again they take off. Mine is on my lap every evening when I watch tv.

Sophera broke a very small peony (just one stem was all I had) that I had just planted laying down right in front of me to rub her belly she was always rolling right beside me mashing the little starts that I had just planted wanting attention but now not so much she’s starting to know when she can drop and roll wanting her belly rubbed in other areas in my yard :) They can learn :)

I did put out lemon peels and no more litter box. Of course, I haven't seen the stray cat since that time either so not sure if the lemon actually drove it away.

I had someone tell me on here that if you plant rue in your flower beds it would keep the cats away but mine doesn't seem to mind it I just hope the voles hate it.

At least you don't have the stray cat :) For now anyway lol Good for you! Good luck.

Maybe he reads this thread, lol. Between the pungent mints and the river rocks covering exposed soil, my ferals have left my plants alone.

Haven't seen any cats around lately. Usually, there's always one lurking under the rhodie by the bird feeder, waiting to pounce. Instead, I now have raccoons digging up my yard and planted annuals.

I don't feed the birds in the summer the cats is one of the reasons I worry all winter if the cats are going to get the birds! I do have a feeder out there for the finches why I don't know they gobble my seeds up before the plants can even finish making them lol I never get any sun flower seeds but some how one always seems to sprout in the summer lol

If it's not one critter it's another have no idea what to do with those thangs! Do you know what the raccoons are digging for? Do they eat grubs? I think the skunks do, do you have any mole problems they always go after grubs. Maybe you could get some of those granules to kill the grubs couldn't hurt.

Here you go they say to get rid of the grubs:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Pests-730/grubs-raccoons.htm

http://www.gardenguides.com/video-58948-keep-raccoons-away.html

Raccoons are looking for insects and anything else crawly. They roll all of my "border" logs out of the way to look for them. And they love columbine leaves.

They turned over my spearmint pot last night, the li'l boogers! Looking for bugs under it, I'm sure.

They keep overturning my bird bath as well even though is usually empty. I'm dreaming of night vision scopes.

I mulched an area with a bag of hazelnut shell mulch I bought- cats hated it because it is hard and a bit sharp. I hated it too because the shells take forever to break down, and they roll out into the brick path. I finally covered it with another mulch. It did keep the cats off though, and it worked for years.

I never heard of that; where did you find it?

At a local garden center. I know they grow hazelnuts commercially in Oregon so maybe it came from there. Maybe in KY you could get crushed pecan or walnut shells? They would be crunchy too.

Good idea, we do have loads of walnuts here. Thanks!