Please, please, please can you tell me?

Question

We have recently planted about 300 Tulip bulbs . Our neighbour have a cat and it is digging out my bulbs, they are all planted the right depth and it is driving me crazy. We get on well with our neighbours and i do not want to cause trouble. How can i stop the cat from doing its business in my garden. I know our ground is nice and soft enough for the cat to do its business but not in my yard. Please let me know if anyone out there has got the same problem or if you have found the solution let me know please. Thank you.:)

Answer 1

There are a few methods of disuading cats out of your garden that I have heard from friends and neighbours with similar problems, all of which have pro's and con's. Some of these methods work for some people but have failed for others.

1. The water method. Keep a jug of water handy and every time you see a cat in your garden throw the water at it. This method works to some extent- some cats will stay away perminantly, but others will learn to only visit your garden when you are out. Also some people consider this method as animal cruelty so it may cause problems with your local cat owners.

2. Buy a cat scarer. This is a small box that lets off a variety of high pitch squeals that humans are not supposed to be able to hear. The high pitch squeal is supposed to scare off cats. There are several down sides to the method- my invested in one, it is now in the bin. The reason for this is that the cats became accustomed to it and learned to ignore it. Also I have sensitive hearing, I couldn't go in my own garden in summer because the repetative high pitch squeal drove me bonkers.

3. Sprinkle pepper over your garden. Most cats sniff around a proposed toileting site before using it. The smell of pepper isn't appealing to some cats so they won't toilet where there is pepper. This is great, because it is environmentally friendly, but the down side is you will have to replenish it on a regular basis. I don't know how it will affect the development of your garden produce, and also not all cats are bothered by pepper.

4. Try cutting an onion or two in half. Place the onion halves strategically around the garden. The smell is supposed to keep animals at bay. I haven't seen this method in practise so I am not sure how well it works, but I imagine it would probably keep your human visitors at bay as well. You would probably have to replace your onions on a regular basis.

5. My dad swears by moth balls. He places moth balls strategically around his garden. Cats can't stand the smell so they stay away. Obviously the down side to this is that they are poisonous and if some unsuspecting animal or child decides to eat one of your mothballs you may have a fatality on your consious. This method is probably only best for gardens that are child free and cannot be freely accessed by animals other than cats (as is my dad's case).

6. Mix a quantity of your own urine (or healthy adult male human urine) with tobasco sauce and spray the mixture at prominent locations in your garden at cat-nose height. Apperently this freaks cats out because they can't work out what kind of animal has made claims on this territory, but it seems big mean and scary and should be avoided. Again this is a method I haven't seen in action, and I imagine it would be quite disturbing to the human nose.

7. Again, another method I have not seen in action, nor am I likely to, but it is supposed to work similar to the above method. Contact a local zoo/safari and get hold of some adult male lion urine and spray that in prominent places around your garden. This is a method I have heard talk of, but I have never known anyone who has used it themselves- it is usually a method that is used by a friend of a friend of a friend and I suspect nobody has every really tried it. I imagine that if you could get old of male lion urine, it wouldn't smell very nice to the human nose. If you have ever smelled tom-cat pee, imagine what male lion pee would smell like- YUK!

Answer 2

Some people recommend mothballs, but naptha is a suspected carcinogen, so I would never use them. (Plus, they would smell nasty on warm days.) You could poke wooden skewers into the ground. They're long enough that six or seven inches could stick up while the rest is firmly imbedded. Or, use lots of toothpicks. Or, cover the area with wire mesh, so the flowers can poke through, but the cats can't dig.

(I don't know if this is an actual help, but we used to have many cats visit our garden, digging in the woodchips. I started throwing our coffee grounds out in the garden, just to help the plants, but I scarcely see cats there now. I thought that was interesting.)

Answer 3

Get a dog. Our neighbour has two cats that used to cut through our garden and dig it up. Till I arrived. Okay so when I was a pup in the cage in the conservatory they used to leap the wall and stroll through the garden bold as brass, not anymore mate. No way Pedro. I gave them a beasting, shouting and running like a loony, chased them over the wall and after a couple of times they stopped taking the mick and stayed away. There is nothing a cat hates more than a dog and quite right too.

Answer 4

You can buy various cat deterrents - chemical and electronic, but I don't know of one which will put off a really determined cat with urgent business to attend to. Is it possible to put some sort of netting around the planted area until the bulbs emerge from the soil? Or do you have a dog which could stand guard?

Answer 5

you could try covering it in mesh temporarily until the tulips start to come up. Cats will dig in any nice soft earth so the less you have on show the better. cover the garden in lots of plants and don't let any soil show through.

Answer 6

Hi there...Common odours that are effective deterrents for cats are:

Citronella works best for cats as well as citrus scents such as orange or lemon (primarily towards cats), cayenne pepper, coffee grounds, pipe tobacco, lavender oil, lemon grass oil, citronella oil, peppermint oil, eucalyptus oil, and mustard oil.

"Havahart's Cat Repellent" uses capsaicin pepper and oil of mustard as its active ingredients. It repels by both taste and odor, has a lemon scent.

Every animal responds differently to each of these. Some will not be phased by them and others will be quite revolting.

For training purposes they are applied on items that are to encourage avoidance behaviours and not for use with a squirt bottle as they could harm the eyes or respiratory system. Test each substance and observe to see which works as a deterrent so that accidental injestion does not occur as some could then be fatal.

Coleus plants can be effective, but every cat responds differently so it is uncertain without experimenting.

Many people believe mothballs work, however they are considered toxic and should NOT be used. Here's more information on this:
http://www.cvm.uiuc.edu/ope/enotes/showarticle.cfm?id=89
MOTHBALLS are toxic to cats which contains the ingredient Naphthalene. Mothballs are approximately twice as toxic as paradichlorobenzene, and cats are especially sensitive to naphthalene. Signs of ingestion of naphthalene mothballs include emesis, weakness, lethargy, brown-colored mucous membranes and collapses. Paradichlorobenzene mothballs may cause GI upset, ataxia, disorientation, and depression. Elevations in liver serum biochemical values may occur within 72 hours of indigestion.

Answer 7

You can buy a cat scarer from shops (it's a metal cat silhouette with marble eyes) that you can put in your garden to scare them away.
Also bits of tin foil on strings around your garden might scare them off.
A friend of mine's mother breeds cats, and swears by putting ground glass on the main entry points that the cat is using - they won't walk on it, so won't get into the property.
I personally don't like the sound of this method, and I really wouldn't recommend it if you've got children who play in the garden either as they can hurt themselves

Answer 8

its a green lumpy substance called get off my garden you sprinkle it all over the ground around the plants and anywhere you dont want a cat to do it ,they hate the sent it gives of and they will go to someone elses garden lol its really good stuff you can also learn pets to use allocated areas as well using this ,and also orange peeling cats hate as well

Answer 9

Water Pistol.

Lay in wait a few times and catch them with a good squirt, they will soon equate your garden to getting a good soaking and steer clear. water is hated by cats but totally harmless to them.

I had problems with two of my cats being inquisitive whilst I was ironing and after a couple of squirts they now disappear fast when I get the iron out.

Answer 10

Cats are supposed to be deterred by orange peel so scatter loads around the area; rose bush cuttings also deterr them as they wouldn't like to walk on them; they also apparently are deterred by water in transparent bottles (platic lemonade bottles) filled and laid on the ground; the pooh of larger predators is supposed to work best so if you can lay your hands on lion pooh that should do the trick. Alternatively, ask your neighbours to keep their cats in!