Keeping Cats Out of Your Garden
Keeping Cats Out of Your Garden
Whether your own cat likes to explore your garden beds, or your landscaping often has visiting stray cats walking through, it’s important to know how to keep these furry friends out of your garden beds.
Often times cats will actually be a help to your garden, as they do keep out pests like moles and rabbits. However, they can also wreak havoc by chewing plants, digging through the dirt and mulch, and nesting on smaller plants.
The Best Ways to Keep Cats Out of Your Garden Beds
Here are some of the best ways to keep cats away from your garden beds.
1. Smelly Plants
There are many plants and flowers that will naturally drive the problematic cats away, without actually harming them. Consider more aromatic plants like lavender and Russian sage, as cats don’t enjoy their scents. More prickly, sharp plants are a great idea as well, as they make cats uncomfortable. These include plants like thistles and sea holly.
2. Sprinklers
A sprinkler with a motion-sensor is a great way to guard a garden or flower bed in your landscaping. With one of these, cats will be easily scared off by the water no matter what time of day or night it is.
3. Netting or Fencing
While this option would require a little more work and maintenance to keep up on, it is a great way to keep cats away from your plants. Using bird netting or even building a small fence or wall around your garden beds works well and can be fairly affordable as well.
You can also anchor down sheets of netting over the soil to stop the cats from digging.
4. Build a Cat Garden
If you would like to give the cats an alternative space to inhabit, and you have the room in your landscaping, consider building a cat garden! The area can include grass and clippings, and then pet-friendly plants like catmint or cat grass.
5. Add a Sandbox
Last but not least, another great distraction for potential visiting cats is a sandbox. It may not seem like it, but a small area of sand actually does wonders for distracting animals, and it gives the cats a new place to dig instead of your garden beds.
Hiring Professionals to Help You Keep Cats Out of Your Garden
If you are having difficulty handling cats or other pests in your landscaping, consider hiring professional landscapers to help you out. It’s important to make sure your plants are protected from potential pests and diseases, and a good landscaper will know how to handle them.
For those of you in the San Francisco Bay Area, consider contacting Homescape Now for assistance with pests in your landscaping. Give us a call today!
