How to keep cats from eating plants is a question of interest, if you have caught your cat eating your plant and felt helpless, then you are not alone.
Cats are naturally drawn to plants, for their fragrance, taste, appearance, and sometimes the movement of the leaves from a light breeze.
Our experts have done their experiments and research so you don’t have to. Keep reading to learn how to keep cats from eating plants.
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How To Keep Cats From Eating Plants?
To keep cats from eating plants, make sure the plant is unreachable, or train them to stay away. Furthermore, place noisy equipment to scare them, you can also place plants they hate. Apply some cayenne pepper, or apply cat repellent spray or a homemade one, or place citrus peels.
– Make Your Plants Unreachable
You may want to place your indoor plants in various spots around the house, but keeping plant pots on the ground makes them easily accessible for your cat.
As a result, they could be planning to chew on its leaves or tear it apart in your absence. To avoid this, hang your plants above the ground or hang them from the ceiling. The height makes the plants inaccessible to cats, as a result, they fail to harm your potted plants.
As you hang them, it will be quite easy for you to see that the plant is not getting damaged, and it is being secure in a sense. Furthermore, they will be protected, if they are hung, even if your cat tried to jump, they will not achieve to tear the leaves with their paw, which would depend on how high you have placed it.
However, if your cat is a great climber and knows how to jump from one piece of furniture to the other, you might have to adopt other means to keep pets off of your plants, which would be on a higher shelf.
– Train Your Cat to Stay Away
Sometimes, simple discipline training can fix all of your plant-cat problems. Cats are domestic pets that can be trained to improve or amend their behavior or habits.
You can train your cat by rewarding it with treats or punishing it for bad behavior. Nevertheless, the punishment could lead them to continue the act in secret or in your absence.
Hence, you can train your cat through treats and affection to stay away from your plants. The process may take some time but once your cat is trained, you will be glad you had put in the effort.
You can simply keep them away by giving them a treat in the ways that you would train them, again, it may be a little challenging, but the bright side is that once they mature and become adults, they will be aware that the plant is not something that they should eat.
– Place Noisy Equipment
Cats are sneaky animals that usually carry out their mischief in secret or silently. You may have found your plant in a disastrous situation without sound. One of the clever ways to keep your cat away from your plants is to use sound to your benefit.
Place a number of empty cans or any such tools around your plant that make the loudest noise at the slightest touch or movement. You can set some wind chimes that are made of light metal material, and with a single light wind, they would scare the cats away.
Every time your cat comes near your plants, you will be alarmed, and so will them. Remember that your cat will also hate to make noise and stay away from the plants. You can even install a squeaky toy in a way that will scare them away.
– Place Plants that Cats Hate
You will be surprised to learn how some plants can fend off cats on their own. You can place these, and it will guarantee you that they will not eat them, hence your plants will not be harmed.
For example, cats hate rose, cactus, and rosemary plants and will naturally stay away from such thorny plants, they tend to keep themselves safe and stay away from them.
As these plants are beautiful and will enhance any space they are kept in. So invest in such selected plants that will deter your cat from its thorny feature.
Furthermore, they also dislike rue, lemon thyme, lavender, coleus canina, penny royal, and many more. If you place them, you will not see your cat approaching and eating them.
– Place Cayenne Pepper
You might not know this, but cats are deterred by cayenne pepper it has to do with the smell of this spice. In short, this popular spicy seasoning is hated by cats and your cat will do their best to stay away from anything that has cayenne pepper.
As you would have the initiative to add some cayenne pepper on the surface or at the base of your home plants and watch how your cat avoids the plant, if you do not wish to create a messy situation, you can always apply them on some cotton ball, and the smell will fill the air eventually.
This is because cayenne pepper contains the chemical capsaicin which is widely used in cat-repellent sprays.
You can even make a homemade repellent spray with this strong chemical to keep applying the solution to your plants, and again, as you spray it, they will leave your plant alone.
– Cat Repellent Spray
If you don’t wish to make your own cat repelling spray then you can always choose to get a commercial cat deterrent spray in most of the pet stores near you.
These sprays are made with ingredients that are safe for animals, so you can be assured that it won’t harm your cat. However, it is always a good practice to check the label before you purchase any cat repellent spray for any possible chemical that your cat may not tolerate well.
– Homemade Repellent
One of the easiest cat repellents that you can make at home is a vinegar and water solution. Just as many adults hate the smell or taste of vinegar, cats to hate it. Spraying the solution onto your plant’s leaves from time to time will make your cat walk away and avoid the plant.
However, make sure that you do not spray with a big quantity, or else the plant will be damaged. You can even hang the solution as you apply it through a sponge, and it will quickly revolt the cat into even approaching near it.
– Place Citrus Peels
If you have ever noticed how a cat reacts to oranges or lemons, you will realize how you can use citrus to your advantage. Cats are very sensitive to smell, and they will avoid anything that contains any unpleasant or strong odor, and citrus is one of them.
Due to this, you can use citrus peels to deter your cat from your plants. Place a few lemon peels at the base of the plant pot to do its trick. This is a very natural, harmless, and effective method to keep cats from eating plants.
Conclusion
Now that we know the essential steps on how to keep cats from eating plants, we can easily deter cats from our plants.
Here are a few significant points to remember:
- Keeping your cat away from your plants is crucial as some toxic plants can be harmful to the health of your pet.
- Making your plants unreachable, training your cat, using citrus peels, keeping noisy tools, and decorating your home with plants that cats dislike are some of the clever ways to keep your cat at bay.
- Cat repellent sprays are easy solutions to deter your cat so invest in readymade sprays found in vet stores or make the spray solution at home with common ingredients.
- Cats are unable to digest plants or grass so they often throw up or become sick when cats consume it.
- Cats naturally avoid certain smells that include menthol, pine, pepper, thyme, and more.
Making sure that your cat does not end up chewing the leaves of your favorite plant can be difficult if you are clueless. By following these steps and tips that we have shared, you will be able to grow healthy plants in your home along with a pet.
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