cat and plants?

hi i would like to know if any of you have had problems with the cat "trimming" your plants.

i myself cant keep the cat out of the spider plant(chlorophytum comosum) its been biding the edges of the leafs for along time now, the plant is starting to look like lawn grass and its also been pulling the smaller ones up.
theres some other plants that its been eating like charmadorea elegans and a small agave americana and a pony tail palm.

any tips on how to keep the cat out of the plants?

I think most cats are attracted to plants with thin or dangling type foliage. If it hangs or moves with a breeze they like to bat it with their paws. And for some reason, some cats like to eat the foliage of plants, which is not good. Many plants have toxic qualities and can be dangerous or deadly if ingested.

You can try getting a plastic spray bottle, filling it with water and spraying the cat whenever you see him/her around the plants. That might work and then again, it might not. I've had luck with most of our cats using that method but one of of our cats thought it was a game and loved being sprayed with water! Years ago someone suggested filling a container with coins and shaking it when the cat got near the plants but we never tried that method. That may not deter them from eating or playing with plants but could cause them to be frightened of loud noises.

I've always tried to stay vigilant with the cats because many plants can be toxic if ingested, some more so than others. It's hard to train them to stay away from something they think is free for them to play with. We began training ours when they were kittens ... always keeping a spray bottle of water nearby and when they would bother the plants I would spray them with water. It worked for all of our cats except one. We got this little kitten who was ten days old. As she grew she wanted to play in the plants. I would spray and spray that cat until she was soaked, she seemed to like it and think it was a fun game! As she got older she got better about not bothering the plants but every once in awhile she would walk over to a plant and bat at it. I would get the spray bottle and spray her and she would run away. A few minutes later she would go back to the same plant, stand and look at me and squint her eyes waiting for the spray of water! We had one cat for 15 years who only seemed to have a liking to African Violets, and would chew the leaves and flowers. I had a plant stand and she could only reach the ones on the very bottom shelf. She thought it was her own private salad bar so I finally moved them to a higher shelf.

Here's the ASPCA list of 399 plants that are toxic to felines: http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/poison-control/plants/index.jsp?plant_toxicity=toxic-to-cats&page=1

thank you :) i will try the water spraying thing.
hmmm, that list only seems to contain the most common plants dosnt it?

I have a cat that does the same thing. My little cat thinks its a game with the water bottle. She is pretty skittish as is so the coin trick would just make that worse and i have them up as high as i can get, and so many plants have been ruined. I am always watching and even when i watch she gets up there, almost like shes like look what i'm doing, and as i get up to shoo her out of them shes already gone she knows she shouldn't be up there. so i am at ropes end with this.

laurie

I put rocks on the top of the soil to keep them from digging - I stratigically placed bamboo skewers around my plants to keep the cat out. As soon as I got lax, and left a baby aloe on the table, he ate it - then he went after the other aloes. Got my skewers back up - now he gets poked whenever he goes after the plants. Seems to be working again so far.

However, he finally ate the last of the aloe, maybe nothing else really interests him.

Pet storesand places like Wal Mart carry grass that's just for cats. It's just a simple green grass that's easily grown in a container just for cats to eat. You can place it anywhere your cat especially likes to be so it will get his/her attention. It's a sweet grass and cats like it so, once they discover it, most cats will leave houseplants alone.

A water pistol works great to :>)
Christine

I've heard that scented candle wax granules repel cats. (???)

The water gun sprayer thing just p****d my cat off enough to hurt me. I have scars. Seriously though, I try to keep plants and bouquets out of her reach and grow wheat grass and catnip on lower access spots to keep her interested in separate goodies. (The one time I bought "cat grass" seeds there were about ten seeds for three bucks. Thankfully the package had the seed name on the package. It was hard red winter wheat. Now 3 bucks of seed lasts a long, long time. I'm talking years. And if you live near a silo you got it free.)

Ouch! Nothing worse than a ticked off kitty! I didn't realize that some stores are such a rip off with the kitty grass as I used to buy mine at Wal Mart. Now I just keep some out of the winter wheat we use to plant a food plot down by the creek for our "pet" deer every winter. Those deer are another whole story--they try to eat the buds off all my trees :-{

See my thread here for the sad story of a killed Pony Tail Palm http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1045516/

I once found a product at Kmart called OUT!. It's a spray that you use to keep pets OUT! of an area. It smelled like oranges to me, but my dogs and cats *hated* the smell of it so much they wouldn't go near it.

I had a basket of beautiful seashells, hand picked from the ocean (that didn't smell to me, but) I knew the animals could smell them. I had it setting on the floor. I knew the animals wanted to eat them. I sprayed OUT! on a paper towel, put it under the basket and they never bothered it once. Also used it around the base of the Christmas trees. I would refresh the OUT! now and then when I'd think of it. Even used it on my neighbors shrubs once...worked till it rained.

I just looked up OUT!'s site and that products isn't listed. Strange, since that's what got them started...keeping animals OUT!!!! I'm hoping it can still be found at KM or WM tho. There's got to be another product similar to it tho. http://www.outinternational.com/index.html

I used to grow wheat grass for my cats years ago but although they loved it, they weren't deterred from chewing on certain foliage plants even with cat grass in a few different areas of the house! And, if the grass dies back and is no longer readily available they will head back to the plants pretty quickly. For a non toxic solution you can try laying orange peels or sprinkling red pepper flakes on the soil at the base of the plant. Some cats detest these two odors and will steer clear of any area with these scents, but then again ... it may not deter some cats.

I've heard suggestions in the past of sprinkling moth balls around the plants but I would strongly advise against this method because moth balls do have chemicals that are toxic and although I don't think a cat would ever eat a moth ball, if they came into contact with them, they could ingest the toxins when grooming themselves.

Another possibility is what I do to keep cats out of all my outdoor plants on my porch--put pine cones all around the base of the plant. They don't feel too good on kitty's feet so they steer clear of them! And they're free too.