No matter how much you love your cat, you probably won’t enjoy seeing them play in your yard or dig in your well-curated garden. If you hired landscaping services here in Minneapolis to get your dream garden design, of course, you’d want to keep it looking a certain way.
Making sure your cats don’t go to places they’re not welcome is an important task not just to keep your garden looking great but also to maintain good relationships with your neighbors. However, our feline friends are known for their amazing jumping and climbing skills.
So the challenge is a lot more difficult than it seems. So, is it actually possible to keep the cats away from the yard? Cats are extremely unpredictable creatures. Homeless strays and feral cats are looking for places where they can live permanently. In contrast, domestic cats roam around often to establish their territories, mate, hunt, look for food,
or simply because they’re curious about their surroundings. Also, effective cat repellents are hard to find, so how exactly can pet owners keep their own cats and even other intruders from making their beautiful landscape a huge litter box?
Here are some of the most common approaches:
Cat-proof fencing
Here’s a great thing about this type of fencing: those that are designed to keep cats in can also be effective in keeping them out. To do this, make sure the slanted top of the fencing is pointed outwards instead of going in.
This type of fencing, however, may not be the most budget-friendly, but it’s known for being highly effective. But, if you don’t want something that can damage your wallet, you can go with a preventative planting technique using chicken wires.
Grab some chicken wires and lay them down on top of the soil right across the planting bed before you start planting anything. With a wire cutter, you can make holes in the chicken wires that are big enough for plant installation.
Unique-smelling substances
There are certain smells that cats aren’t a fan of, such as citrus or dried blood which is present in blood meal fertilizers. So, spread some peels of lemons, oranges, grapefruits and limes on your garden to drive away cats. Some choose to use mothballs.
However, these work as pesticides and can be extremely toxic to people, pets, and wildlife, so they may not be the best options. Cayenne pepper flakes may also work, but they can sting and harm your pet.
Water devices
Some devices such as motion activated sprinklers are designed to detect a cat’s or any intruder’s presence in your garden and fire a sudden burst of water. This is a favorite deterrent among many garden and pet owners.
These are safe because they won’t directly hit your cat, but they can startle and scare them away, sending a signal that they’re somewhere off-limits.
There are limitations to this device, however. They won’t work effectively during the colder months because the water freezes, so make sure to put them out during spring, summer, and autumn, so the cats will be trained when winter finally comes.
