Does your cat enjoy scratching at the soil in your flower pots? Do you often find them lying next to your plants looking all innocent? Do they even use the soil as their litter tray? If so, then this article is for you!

It can be a little frustrating when you've worked an entire morning setting up new potted plants for the season ahead and your cat decides that they like them too - in more ways than you'd like!

To help keep your cat away from your potted plants and stop them disrupting the soil (even leaving unwanted surprises), take a read of some of our handy tricks below.

1. Citrus smells

Unlike us, cats don't particularly enjoy the smell of citrus fruits. So for the orange, grapefruit, lemon and lime eaters out there, arrange pieces of peel around the base of your plants to ward off your cat.

While your cat is likely to stay away, just remember to change the peel relatively frequently to avoid growing anything other than your potted plant!

2. Soil or...?

If citrus peel doesn't sound like a suitable option for you, the advantage of this second trick is that it can ultimately improve the aesthetic look of your home.

Find some nice looking glass pebbles, beads or aquarium gravel. Why? Cats are not fans of walking on this!

Distribute a layer evenly over the top of the soil so that it can't be seen (about 2-3cm thick). Don't overdo it as you still want the soil to breathe. Even if your cat scratches at the top layer a little, they are unlikely to find or be enticed by the soil underneath.

3. Get the cutlery out!

If you're like us and trying to do away with plastic in a bid to be more environmentally friendly, old plastic forks that you don't want to simply throw in the bin will come in handy here (please remember to discard all similar plastic items responsibly to avoid them ending up in animal habitats).

FYI - this won't injure your cat!

For this trick, you may need to cut the handle of the fork so find something suitable to do this with. Then, handle first, stick the forks into the soil leaving just a couple of millimetres of the prongs sticking out of the ground. Make sure to arrange them so that your cat has no other choice but to walk on one. While it won't hurt them, it will quickly deter them from getting into your plants again!

What are some tricks you use to keep your cat out of your pot plants?

You need to have a Yummypets account in order to comment on this article.
Create your Yummypets account in less than a minute.