Gardening Harmful animals Pets Repellents

How to Keep Cats From Pooping in Your Garden

Most gardeners like cats... but the ones that are sure your garden is their own personal litter box, not so much. Learn how to deal with cats behaving badly in this article!

Photo: were-photography, depositphotos

By Larry Hodgson

You just love your cat! He (or she) is smart and affectionate and would never hurt a fly, let alone a garden. But the neighbor’s cat, that’s a different story. The @*&#! thing has decided your garden is it’s personal litter box. And your other neighbor feeds stray cats and attracts dozens to the neighborhood where they spray your lettuce with stinky urine, poop in your garden, and dig up your beds. What can you do?

Fortunately, there are several tricks you can use to keep cats out of a garden, or even an entire yard! Here are a few:

  1. Keep the animals’ favorite litter spot moist by repeatedly watering it: cats hate getting their paws wet and will eventually move on to drier pastures.
  2. Cover the soil with chicken wire. Cats won’t be able to dig into the soil and in fact won’t even walk on it if they can help. To make the situation worse (for soon-to-be grumpy kitty), cats have the inherent habit of scratching the soil after they defecate to bury the evidence… and chicken wire makes that impossible . However, plants can grow through the mesh, so you, the gardener, gets to win!
  3. Cover the soil with a rough or even prickly mulch: bark mulch, pinecones, spruce branches (you just knew there had to be a way of recycling last year’s Christmas tree branches, didn’t you!), rose trimmings, gravel, etc. They’ll keep cats away.
  4. Apply dog hair to the spot (kitty won’t be happy with that!). If you don’t have a pooch, ask a pet grooming salon for a few handfuls. Human hair will work too… on feral cats. Domestic cats, though, are not bothered by human odors.
Plastic forks sticking up from the garden just aren’t conducive to a quiet bowel movement! Photo: losingmyjobinnewjersey.blogspot.com
  1. Stick coffee stirrers, bamboo skewers or plastic forks (pointy side up) about 8 inches (20 cm) apart in the soil of the cat’s favorite litter area. This will make things very uncomfortable for Puss.
  2. Apply citrus peels to the soil. Kitties will avoid them.
Coleus caninus goes under many names. One of them is rip-off. Photo: Manfre, reddit.com
  1. Some plants have the reputation of being able to repel cats. This is particularly the case of rue (Ruta graveolens), lavender (Lavandula spp.), pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium), absinthe (Artemisia absinthium), lemon thyme (Thymus x citriodorus), lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) and Piss-off Plant™ (Coleus canina or Plectranthus caninus, also sold under names Scaredy Cat™, Dog’s Gone™ or Bunnies Gone™). Be forewarned though that some cats seem fairly indifferent to plant odors: you may have to test several plants to find one that works in your situation. And very honestly, the so-called Piss-off Plant (P. caninus) has a terrible reputation among gardeners. In fact, serious studies show it simply doesn’t work.
  2. Use a commercial animal repellent, which can be coyote urine or the urine of some other predator, rotten eggs, or a mixture of various repellent products. You can spray it on the soil or on the surrounding plants or structures. You’ll have to spray repeatedly (read the instructions for the recommended frequency of application), as they wear off. Sometimes you have to try several repellents before finding one that works well.
  3. Surround the garden with fencing. This is an expensive solution, but if you have to protect an entire garden from feral cats, it may be the best choice. Use chicken wire, plastic mesh or chain link fence on metal or plastic posts (cats will climb wooden ones). The fence should be at least 7 feet (2 m) high and buried at the base (the cats won’t hesitate to dig to reach their favorite garden). An electric fence is another possibility.
  4. Install an ultrasound repulsive device. These seem to work with most cats at first, but most cats quickly get used to it, so it may only be a temporary solution.
Moton-operated sprinklers are fun to watch in action. Just be sure you don’t get sprayed yourself! Photo: amazon.com
  1. Use a motion-activated sprinkler. Just attach it to a hose and point it towards the garden in question. The next time the cat saunters by, it’ll be greeted with a spray of water, the ultimate insult for kitties! This method seems completely effective, but the device is quite pricey. Two models I know of are the Scarecrow by Contech and Spray Away by Havahart.

Methods to Avoid

On the Internet, you’ll find dozens of other methods for keeping cats away from your garden, some effective, some slightly so, and many a waste of time, but there are a few you should simply avoid. Here are some examples:

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Mothballs are toxic products and have no place in the garden.

Placing mothballs in the garden. Their odor is said to repel cats (that in itself is debatable), but the real problem is that they contain naphthalene, a toxic product. Some cats, far from being repelled, eat the mothballs and make themselves sick. Some even die. Also, children may mistake them for candy.

The same applies to dryer sheets (Bounce, Snuggle, etc.), also sometimes recommended for keeping cats away. Some cats chew or play with them and make themselves sick.

Certainly, don’t sprinkle Cayenne pepper in the garden and gleefully sneak away, feeling you’ve really put one over on the annoying little critter. That’s just cruel! Cats don’t even notice the smell of this type of pepper and so it can’t possibly repel them. But they can get it on their paws, then lick it off, causing them gastric distress, vomiting, diarrhea and more. Or severe pain and temporary blindness if it gets into their eyes. A trip to a veterinarian is likely to ensue. A cat may be an annoyance to you as a gardener, but it doesn’t deserve that!

Finally, some people claim that applying coffee grounds to the soil will repel cats. While coffee grounds aren’t harmful to cats, using them this way is a waste of time. Most cats are indifferent to coffee grounds while others are actually attracted to the stuff. Just put your coffee grounds in the compost bin, where they really belong!

Try one (or more) of the above methods and you should be able to get the peace you deserve!

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Garden writer and blogger, author of 65 gardening books, lecturer and communicator, the Laidback Gardener, Larry Hodgson, passed away in October 2022. Known for his great generosity, his thoroughness and his sense of humor, he reached several generations of amateur and professional gardeners over his 40-year career. Thanks to his son, Mathieu Hodgson, and a team of contributors, laidbackgardener.blog will continue its mission of demystifying gardening and making it more accessible to all.

10 comments on “How to Keep Cats From Pooping in Your Garden

  1. Thanks, for the information. This article is too good for all pet lovers. But catflix is the best website for all pet lovers.

  2. cats are the love of my life. lived in my home for 34 years . this is the fist 11 months fo that time we as a family do not have felines the guardians of the under world. Da-Silva was put to sleep last June. . i do recall before these fantastic creatures i would put cotton thread on canes on my seedlings. as we Cleary had a cat trail on our little private road… i now look out to see felines with tears in my eyes. i sit and talk to 5 in my big garden boarder. ….. i have 2 others not belonging to me in a another garden. all resting . they come and play at night. i do.. i repeat now i do have act urine problem and toilet problem with other cats using our garden, upsetting as it is. i,ll live with it but water more to stop this. their out side cat kennel fully lined upon our wood stock. with new bed of my jumpers is there for any one to use. . i.m 64 and able conjure up tears in second reminiscing about all the love given received in 33 years

  3. Onion butts! That is what I used to use where I lived in town. The root ends of onions needs to be cut off anyway. I just put them out in the garden. They did not last long, but even if they stayed fresh for only a day, they interrupted the routine. A few fresh onion butts would become available every few days or so.

  4. Ferne Dalton

    I found that even ordinary garden netting laid over open patches worked well. They just don’t like getting their claws tangled into it. For a narrow smaller space the branches you mentioned worked well too and were easy to remove when necessary.

  5. Lonnie Moon

    I bury the squeeze type mouse traps in pots. The cat only digs in the pot once and I have seen them walk by late on, then realize where they are and puff up, hair straight out, and walk by the pot sideways without taking their eyes off it. Its fun to watch at least…..

  6. I have a cat that loves to dig in pots. Big chunky pine cones work well as does big big chunks of moss. It’s an ongoing battle during the winter months when he’s bored and all my overwintering dormant plants and he are tucked into the garage together.

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