Cat Repellent - How to Deter Cats

Other peoples cats that is. Apparently (I've never tried it not being a cat lover) the best way to deter cats is to get a cat of your own. That way it makes the garden its territory and other neighborhood cats don't get a look in. On the same lines, a dog is a fairly good way of deterring cats, my Cairn Terrier is most effective with keeping next doors burgeoning menagerie at bay.

Presumably if either of these were an option though you wouldn't be here looking at these pages for how to deter cats.

The main reason to deter cats is that they dig holes in nice soft bare earth in order to deposit their unpleasant little packages, or the males "spray" liberally to establish themselves. The nice soft earth that they like best of all is a newly prepared seed bed and what is more insulting than a cat coming and s******g in it when you've done. Especially as you then need to go and make amends, not knowing quite when you'll find the prize in the bran-tub.

The easiest way of deterring cats in these circumstances is to keep the soil covered with plants or whatever. Gravel may or may not work, some-one I knew moved into a new house that had a gravel patch beside the front door under the porch (the builders obviously couldn't be bothered to cut any paving slabs to fit) and a local cat decided that this was the ideal toilet facility - most unpleasant.

Temporarily unoccupied spots can be 'filled' by pushing prunings particularly of roses or other spiky plants into the soil. Keep twiggy sticks and push them in at an angle to spread over the soil to protect new sowings and plantings. Don't get too enthusiastic though, a few years ago I cut a load of rose prunings into about 2" pieces scattered around a newly dug bed. Kept the cats off a treat it did, over a year later they were still there and I had some very unpleasant weeding experiences - make sure they're easy enough to remove later on.

Coleus canina - Scaredy-Cat Coleus - Cat Repellent Plant
(works with dogs too)

Someone emailed me a five or six years ago asking where to get hold of this plant, at the time I'd never heard of it let alone knew where to buy it.

Coleus canina or the Scaredy Cat plant (also known as the Pee-off plant in Europe) is a hybrid bred in Germany for the particular purpose of deterring one of the domestic gardeners traditional pests - the domestic cat.

The marketing material goes like this:

"Experiments with over 300 plants have now produced the ultimate deterrent. Cats, dogs and even foxes will avoid the Pee-off plant as it’s affectionately known. Coleus canina has excellent foliage and small, attractive spikes of blue flowers in the summer, and releases a stench that cats can’t stand. Thankfully it only smells to the human nose when touched! Could this be the solution to your feline intruder problems you’ve been longing for? Annual, but can easily be propagated and cuttings kept in a frost-free place over winter. Plants need to be established before the smell is released, be in drier rather than wet soil and planted every 1-2 metres. Supplied as cell-raised plants."

Best planted in containers, that way they'll grow quicker to an effective size and you'll be able to move them around and experiment with the best place to put them.

Cat Repellants - Traditional Methods

There are many tried and tested methods to get rid of cats, most of which work for a short time, but tend to rely on some kind of chemical smell so they need regular topping up.