How to keep kitties out of flower bed??

[Yay2001]

My beloved kitty, Maggie, prefers the flower bed to her litterbox. She invites her friends, too

I've tried just about everything -- repellant sprays worked at first, but they all seemed to get used to them. I've tried rough mulching material -- but nothing is rough enough for those felines!

Any suggestions -- besides getting rid of kitty or keeping her indoors (not gonna happen!)

Thanks!!!

 

[NHMickey]

I know this is gross but if you go to the local gardening store or Home Depot style store you can get wild animal urine. Like Mt Lion or wolf or something like that. It comes in a small vial and is hung in the garden. It will keep most animals away as thaey think it is a marked area by a predetor. It really works well and you would not smell or see the vial as it is small and you put it out of the way.

 

[Mamu]

You can try the animal urine.

Sadly thought I think once kitty has decided that it likes this place as it own personal litter box I don't think there will be much you can do.

Also be very careful digging in this area, digging in areas that cats have used as litter boxes can cause ringworms.

 

[pumba]

cut the area where we want to put a plant or a veggie plant and then just leave it there........NOW I am not saying I am a lazy gardner....(YES I AM).....but it prevents most of the weeds and also the kitties can not find a good area to dig up.....this has worked wonders for our area.....which seems to be Cat heaven......we also have squirted them with a water gun.....and they hear the click of the water being pumped into it and run like the dickens......

 

[BeautyLLM]

I have two funny related stories....

The deer were getting into my prized perennial garden and eating my plants. I read that deer are repelled by dried blood (a preparation that you purchase at a garden center...it is usually used as fertilizer). So, I dropped my dog at the groomer, stopped at the garden center, got the dried blood, came home and sprinkled it around my garden. Picked up the dog, came home, opened the back of the car for him to get out. His nose went up in the air and he flew out of the car and raced to the backyard. By the time I got there, he had trampled everything and was filthy...the scent of the dried blood was too much for him to resist....

Another garden....petunias being eaten by slugs. More reading, to find that slugs are repelled by garlic. Hmmm....couldn't hurt to sprinkle some garlic powder around a couple of plants and see what happens...Well, I can confirm that slugs do not like garlic...they avoided these plants like the plague, but as it turns out, flies love garlic! I had maybe a zillion flies at any given time swarming around the petunias.....

My DH told me to stop reading gardening books

 

[justjulie]

From my reading (and I don't know if it's any more accurate) I heard if you plant various types of garlic in your garden they are apparently quite attractive but leave something in the soil that repels slugs and other flower eating critters.

 

[Yay2001]

Pumba -- great sugestion re the paper. I've tried the squirt gun thing too for some undesireable indoor activity (clawing the woodwork) and it worked wonders! she's just harder to catch outdoors LOL!

 

[Mamu]

For the deer I read the only way to stop them is fence in the area.

For the slugs put a saucer of beer in the area. Slugs love beer and they will drown themselves in it.

 

[amid chaos]

For the kitties...I have heard that if you put chicken wire and then a thin layer of mulch it will keep them out. they don't like to walk on it and can't find a place to dig their hole to do their business in.