Tips for Repelling Cats
Cats can be a real nuisance around your garden and home. Whether they are your cats, your
neighbors, or just wild cats roaming the neighborhood, cats can make real pests
of themselves. 
In the process of digging in your flower beds, cats may destroy
plants and seedlings. Cats often decide that your flower box or flower bed is
the perfect litter box. The odor is annoying and the mess they leave behind is
disgusting! Sometimes cats decide that your car hood is the perfect
resting place and they don’t care about scratching your car in the process of
jumping up and down. Whatever your cat problem, there are many ways to repel
cats.
Methods
used repel cats from your garden and flower bed
Make your
garden or flower bed annoying to cats. Plastic forks (tines facing upward)
wooden popsicle sticks or chopsticks can be pushed in
the soil about 7 to 8 inches apart to keep cats from digging in your garden.
The idea is not harm any cats, but to make the area “inconvenient” for digging.
The sticks may be just enough to discourage their digging or you may have to
experiment with just how many are enough. It can look unsightly and a more
tolerable solution would be to sprinkle and/or spray the area with I Must
Garden Dog & Cat Repellent. Cats just don’t like the botanical oils and
other natural ingredients in our repellent and they’ll stay away.
Repel cats
with plants
One herb that is
particularly repelling to cats is rue (Ruta Graveolens). Rue is a semi-woody perennial that grows to
about 2-3 high and wide. Rue has gray-green foliage and clusters of small
yellow flowers in summer. It is hardy in zones 4-9. Rue prefers full sun and,
once established, can grow in poor soils and hot dry sites. Rue will repel cats
from the area in which it grows. In addition, you could sprinkle the leaves of dried
rue in flower pots or other areas you would like to 
protect from cats. You
could also spray your existing plants with I Must Garden Dog & Cat
Repellent. It dries clear and won’t harm your plants and your cats will stay
away!
Repel cats with citrus
Cats don’t like the
smell of citrus fruits, such and oranges and lemons. You may try scattering
orange and lemon peels in your beds. You may have to experiment a little to see
just how much and how often you will need to reapply the peels to keep cats
away!
One other home remedy
to repel cats that people have had success with is to sprinkle used coffee
grinds in their garden. Once again, you would have to experiment on just how
much would be satisfactory to repel cats.
Discourage
cats from using your garden bed as a litter box
Let’s face
it! The reason cats are in your garden to begin with, is that they like your
soil. It’s the perfect place for them - but not for you. So in order to repel
cats you have to make your soil less appealing to cats. There are several
things you can do to keep cats out of your soil. You can add more plants to
your garden which would eventually cover the exposed soil making it too much of
a nuisance for cats to dig in. Covering
your soil with chunky mulch, river rocks or attractive pebbles is another
method used to keep cats out of garden beds. If you’ve recently seeded a flower
bed, protect the bed with wire mesh or netting to hide the attractive loose
soil from the cats.
Get a dog
to repel cats
Unless
raised together, most cats will stay away from dogs. Chances are if you have a
dog roaming around the garden with you, you may not have a cat problem. One other technique that you may want to try, and certainly less
time consuming and expensive than owning a dog, it to collect dog hair from
friends who own dogs. Scatter the dog hair in the flowerbeds to repel
cats.
Install a motion
activated sprinkler
A motion activated
sprinkler will harmlessly spray a cat when it passes in front of it. It will
also spray mailmen and delivery men so you must be careful in directing the
spray.
Throw water on cats
One way to get rid of
cats from your garden is to keep cups or small buckets of water. When cats
wander into your garden, you could fling the water at them. After several drenching, the cat just
might get the message that you don’t want them in your garden.
Repel cats from trees
Cats will readily use
young trees as scratching posts. To protect the trunks from cats, wrap the tree
trunks in wire mesh or netting. Plastic tree guards may also be purchased to
protect your trees.
Repel cats from ponds
Netting may have to be
placed over a pond to keep cats away from fish. Netting should be checked
regularly for rips and repaired as necessary.
Use I Must Garden Dog
& Cat Repellent to keep cats out of your garden
I Must Garden Dog &
Cat Repellent will give you the ammunition to keep cats out of your garden safely and effectively. Our Dog & Cat Repellent is available as
both a spray and granular form. You may not find I Must Garden Dog & Cat
Repellent offensive, but cats don’t like it at all!
Generously sprinkle I
Must Garden Dog & Cat Repellent in your flower beds and pots and mix it
into the soil. Spray the top of the soil with our ready to use spray formula
for added protection and reapply as needed. Depending on your particular
situation, Initial treatments may have to be heavier and frequent.
