It’s a question that gardeners all over the country ask themselves. How do I keep cats out of my garden.
Before we go any further, we must stress that we don’t dislike cats per-se here at Visit Fylde Coast. We love all things furred and feathered, and would never do them any physical harm.
But we really object to other people’s pets coming in our garden. Not because they visit but because of what they do when they get here:
- Stalking, scaring, catching and killing the garden birds
- Digging our borders to poo and use them as a big litter tray
- Spraying wee onto our favourite plants and killing them
How Do I Keep Cats Out of My Garden?
We’ve tried loads of different things to keep cats out of our garden.
There’s one cat, just like the one pictured below, which is determined to keep coming into our garden. It doesn’t seem to matter what we do, it still comes back. Here’s what we have tried, with varying levels of success –
Ultrasonic Cat Deterrents
Ultrasonic deterrents do seem to be effective. We’re currently using the RSPB approved one, available on Amazon.
You can find this one that we use on our Amazon Storefront here. It’s in the Home & Garden list. If you decide to invest in one we will earn an affiliate commission when you go through our link. It all helps us to keep producing the great content that you enjoy.
They’re not cheap, and we’d strongly recommend that you get the separate power supply so that it can be plugged in to the mains. We have previously tried the solar powered ones, and they just aren’t effective.
Depending on the size and shape of your garden you might need to move it round to adjust the angle that the sensor covers. This particular cat seems to have learned how to avoid triggering it… So I keep moving the unit round to outwit it – hopefully!
Prickly Twigs
You’ve tilled your borders and everything looks neat and tidy. You stand back to admire your handywork and then the next day it’s full of paw prints, scrape holes and well hidden cat poo.
If you’ve got rose bushes or a hawthorn hedge, the woody prunings can be put to good use in the border. There’s no need to take the leaves off, they will die and drop off leaving you with bare twigs.
Simply cut them into the desired size and push into the freshly hoed soil. The beauty of this is that you can take them out/move them around and re-use them until they literally drop to bits.
We first tried this trick a year ago and it’s very effective at both keeping cats out of the soil and stopping them from spraying on plants.
You can do a similar thing with bits of short cane. You might need more of them because obviously the cat would be able to weave in between the sticks.
Obstacle Course
We’ve tried to get through to this tenacious feline that it’s not welcome in our garden but the message doesn’t seem to be sinking in…
We have tried all kinds of different things to block its points of entry and egress. Yes, we’ve got those toblerone shaped attachments across the top of the gate.
And we’ve tried to block off the bits of fence that it’s shimmying up and jumping over. Like most people we’ve got an untidy corner where we keep the compost and plant pots. That’s a favourite haunt – probably because it’s tucked away and out of sight.
At one point we had a veritable obstacle course to stop it from climbing the tree. But we kept banging our heads on it!
Now the black pipe has been moved, we’ve left the cats cradle of string between the tree and fence to try and make the floor-to-fence jump more difficult. We even fastened black pond net across the whole of this corner and even that didn’t work!
Pepper and Spice
Our next tactic was to ask a cat-owning friend if she had any recommendations. This friend has two cats but she doesn’t let them wander off. They live in the house and go in the garden when she’s outside, but they don’t roam the neighbourhood.
Paprika was the suggestion. So we tried that and it’s something that we need to revisit now that it’s not as wet outdoors.
Water
Many of you have tried squirting water with the hosepipe, or with a water gun. I believe that’s a good method to keep cats out of your garden. But unfortunately access to ours doesn’t make that an easy technique to try.
Have you tried the water method? Does it work?
Postscript: Hubby was checking that our CCTV cameras were working when he spotted a cat basking in the sunshine on our shed roof. He crept quietly down the garden and squirted it with the hosepipe. It’s not been seen since!
Making Cats Unwelcome
I’ve done all the usual things like shouting and running after it. Like a banshee I go screaming down the garden, waving my arms in the air. It knows I don’t like it, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t stop it from coming back! Goodness knows what the neighbours think!
Nothing seems to make a difference with this particular cat, although the others in the neighbourhood have got the message loud and clear.
It’s pooing in the borders if it finds an unprotected gap and spraying plants to mark its territory. It’s killed loads of plants with both monetary and sentimental value. But the thing I object to most of all is that it stalks the birds, scares them off, and catches them if it can.
How do you Keep Cats out of Your Garden?
Any more ideas anyone? If you have, please leave a comment below.
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