The neighborhood cats are having a jolly good time in your beautiful front garden. Digging and spraying can take its toll on a newly laid flowerbed. Having a big dog is a great way to repel cats from your yard but that is really not a realistic solution to an ongoing problem. And you certainly can not sit twenty four hours a day guarding your property from these little neighborhood pets, so what are the alternatives for cat repellent action?
Trying to keep your beautifully landscaped yard in tact by keeping the feline nation from spending their nights romping and doing whatever they do in it will be an ongoing battle. It will not be a one time deal unless you find a really good cat repellent product to ramp up your defence. So where do you start?
Ideas for Cat Repellent
- Chicken Wire
- Plants that annoy a cat’s odor response
- Water spraying devices
- Smelly additives in the soil that fend off cats
One strange but effective way of keeping cats from digging and depositing in your garden is to put a layer of chicken wire over the top of the soil. Plants can continue to thrive but the cats are incapable of digging through or around it. Most of the time cats don’t even want to walk on any kind of wire material so you have them beaten before they even begin. If you have big plants to place in your garden, it is simple to just take a pair of wire cutters and cut a hole big enough to deposit the new plant.
One of the first thing you might try is to plant a natural odour repellent called coleus canina. Funny enough, this plant is known as the ‘pee-off plant’ or ‘scaredy cat’ plant. The plant is actually quite attractive to look at but puts out a fragrance that really turns cats off. It is pungent to humans but only releases its ‘stink’ when touched.
Herb rue is another natural remedy used as a cat repellent. These plants are an added attraction to your garden foliage but just as the coleus canina, it puts out an odor that sends the neighborhood cats away.
Here’s a good one. Purchase a Champ Scarecrow. This one connects to your garden hose and when any unwanted pest enters your private area, a sensor picks up on the movement and sprays them with water.
Trying to put cats off the garden is dubious at best. Some people try to stink them away by putting moth balls, dried blood (blood meal fertilizer) and urine from other animals that cats fear. They try pennyroyal, lavender and thorns. Another attempt is to soak tea bags with olbas oil and strategically place them on the soil. How about coal tar soap that has been grated onto the garden bed? A few lemon and orange peels do the trick? Obviously not too many of these work because the cats just keep coming back. Thinking like a cat, some people have concluded that putting small pebbles in the garden might work as cats prefer to dig around in loose dirt rather than rocks.
If these natural deterrents do not work, then step it up a bit by purchasing an electronic cat repellent. These devices are not very expensive and are easy to use. All it does is emit an ultrasound tone that can be heard by animals but not by humans. These devices run off a 9 volt battery or some off D cell batteries and is motion sensitive. Once the cat enters your garden, the movement sets off the device and releases this irritating noise in hopes of sending the cat out of ear shot. Check out different sources that offer a variety of cat repellent devices.
Cat Repellent Treatments
The final step in trying to keep these beautiful but pesky animals from ruining all your hard work and causing an unbelievable smell is by use of chemical cat deterrents. Below you will find a list of chemicals available on the web. One thing about any of these chemical treatments is that when it rains, they just dissipate and disappear leaving you to reapply on a regular basis.
- Shake Away
- I Must Garden Dog and Cat Repellent Ready To Use Spray
- Keep Off! Repellent for Cats and Kittens
- Simple Solution Indoor/Outdoor Repellent for Dogs and Cats
- Lambert Kay Boundary Cat Repellent Spray
- Messina Wildlife CA-U-016 Cat Stopper
- Repellex Dog and Cat Granular
As seen the list is simply endless as to all the different products developed just to try and keep the domestic cat from ruining the garden.
At the end of the day, after all your futile attempts at keeping the neighborhood balls of fur from frequenting your garden, perhaps it might just be proactive to plant a small garden designed just for them. A small refuge full of sand and catnip might be a place they will feel invited and it can be cleaned on a regular basis by you. Not exactly what you had in mind, but if it keeps them from destroying your garden, it might be worth a try.
Bottom line is that cats are cats. Domesticated or not, they have the make up of a wild animal. Leaving their home environment to deposit their droppings just comes natural to them. Male cats are geared to leave their sent by hiking their tail and spraying whenever and whatever they feel they need to mark as their territory. Unfortunately this includes your garden. After perusing all the ingenious ways of keeping these guys out of your garden, planting the ‘pee off ‘ plant as a ground cover seems like the best idea. Coleus cannina looks to be a rather pretty plant and as long as you can refrain from touching it yourself, all will be good. It can be a twofold answer as it will keep both you and the cat from being just that, peed off.
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