Limiting your research to just existing threads isn't going to help you determine your answer. What you need to do is talk with places such as the International Cat Association, the Cat Fanciers Association, the American Veterinary Medical Association. Hopefully word has gotten out and people are using any number of the many alternative methods to deter cats which is why you don't find current articles.

What is important to know is that not all cats respond the same way. While they may not literally "scratch their eyes out", they can damage their eyes since cleaning their face with their paws is a regular ritual. Either way, it's potential cruelty and not something most normal human beings would want to be responsible for causing. Most of us humans have accidentally rubbed our eyes after handing hot peppers or cayenne and we know how it feels.

Cat Deterrents for your Garden:

Keep in mind that each cat is different (like people), what works for one may not necessarily work for another. On the plus side, most cats will keep pesty squirrels, moles and other critters out of your garden. They're great for keeping out moles, rabbits, squirrels, and other critters which can do more damage in your garden than a cat ever will. Birds aren't stupid, they watch for cats and stay away. Sometimes natural law comes into play and the quicker animal wins, it's natural law.

If the cats have owners, talk to them without being confrontational. The cat owner who allows his cat to damage other peoples' property is as guilty as the cat hater who kills the cat for trespassing. Remember, cats will be cats, and it is unfair of us to blame them for being what they are and how nature intended them to participate in this world. After-all, we praise them when they catch mice or rats or other creatures we deem to be 'pests'.

* amonia soaked (corncobs, etc)
* aluminum foil
* bamboo skewers
* black pepper
* blood meal fertilizer
* bramble cuttings
* Carefresh - "recycled" wood pulp
* catnip - donated into your neighbor's yards (so they'll stay in their own yards)
* cedar compost
* chicken wire (metal or plastic)
* cinnamon
* citrus peels
* citrus spray
* cocoa bean shells
* coffee grounds -fresh & unbrewed, not just a light sprinkling (highly recommended by MANY Gardenwebbers!)
* dogs
* electric fence for animals
* essence of orange. essence of lemon, lime (citrus essential oils)
* fresh manure(ditto)
* garlic cloves
* gumballs from the Sweet Gum Tree
* gutter covers
* hardware cloth
* heavy bark mulch
* holly leaves
* keep the area damp, they like dry soil
* lavender
* liquid manure (good for your garden too)
* motion sensor sprinkler
* pennyroyal
* pinecones
* pipe tobacco
* plastic forks
* predator urine
* red wine vinegar
* river rocks over the exposed soil
* rocks, crushed
* rose bush clippings
* rue, an herb (Ruta graveolens) (highly recommended in plant form only)
Scarecrow Motion Activated Sprinkler
(do a froogle.com search or www.safepetproducts.com)
Shake-Away Domestic Cat Repellent Urine Powder
(do a froogle.com search or www.safepetproducts.com)
* short twigs throughout the planted area about 6" apart
* six-inch bamboo skewers (pointy side up)
* Spray on your leaves (not the cat): fill a spray bottle with 1/2 t chili powder, 1/2 t cayenne pepper, 1 t dish soap and water
* squirt gun with water
* talk to your neighbors
* tansy
* thorny berry, lilac, hawthorn, rose clippings
* toothpicks
* upside down vinyl carpet
* vinegar sprayed on areas where they roam
* water bottle on "stream"

NOT RECOMMENDED:
*** chili powder, red crushed pepper, cayenne pepper (NOT recommended), it gets on the cat's paws then they wash themselves and they get it in their eyes, beware cats have literally scratched their eyes out because of this. Even if it's one cat out of 500 infected in this way, that's one too many for me.
*** Don't ever use mothballs or flakes. Those little toxic waste pellets destroy cats' kidney function, could seriously harm people who handle them, and yes, contaminate your own garden soil. Their packaging even warns against using them this way.

Give them their own areas:

(To keep them out of where you don't want them)
(If you don't mind them protecting your garden from other critters)

+ Pick the cat up and bring it to eye level with the plant to see and smell it up close. Usually, once a cat seen and sniffed at the plant, she usually doesn't bother with it later.

+ give them their own plants - i.e., pots of grass for her to chew on and a place in a large planted container on her balcony with some miscanthus grass in it (the cat likes to curl up in that for some reason)

+ if the cats are strictly indoors and attracted to your houseplants, grow catgrass for them. If someone forced you to remain inside one enclosed structure all your life, you might be attracted to the plants too.

+ Barley Grass
+ Any type of "catgrass" from the pet store
+ Carex elata 'Bolwes Golden' but put it in some shade
+ Catmint
Nepeta mussini
cultivars (Simply put, Catmints are Catnips without any culinary or feline use. In any case, they are, however, phenomenal, long flowering, hardy perennials that belong in every fairie or flower garden.)
+ Catnip
Nepeta cataria
(in your own yard) The oils of which also work as a mosquito repellent that works 10 times better than Deet! Catmint is the common name for all varieties of Nepeta. Catnip is the common name for the specific variety of Nepeta called
nepeta cataria
, which is the variety that cats are most attracted to.
+ Cat Thyme (Teucrium marum)
+ Flax
+ Oat Grass
+ Jacob's Ladder
+ Lemon Grass
+ Loose soil and mulch like small bark mulch
+ Mints
+ Purple Fountain Grass so the cat lays in the long leaves all day. Maybe put something in that the cats really like and - you know cats won't winky were they like to hang out.
+ Sandy area
+ Silver vine (Actinidia polygama)
+ Striped Ribbon Grass (can be invasive)
+ Sweet grass
+ Trificum aestivum (type of cat grass)
+ Various Varieties of Cat Mints (Catnips)
+ Wheat Grass
+ Wheat Berries
+ Valerian

As a gardener, grow your indoor cat some catgrass and catnip. They're healthy alternatives for your houseplants and they'll much prefer them.

Change the litter to something they prefer. If you don't clean it out everyday, consider it. Cat's appreciate a clean, comfortable place to go just as much as humans do.

This list compiled from existing GW posts by Violet_Z6, email at violet.z6@gmail.com for comments and suggestions regarding this list.

A little aside about pipe tobacco. That may be a no-no because of tobacco mosaic virus. I've read elsewhere that if you smoke, you should always wash your hands before working in the garden to prevent spreading tobacco mosaic virus to your plants. So I imagine that the same would hold true for pipe tobacco.

I can vouch for the bamboo skewers. I had a cat going in my veggie garden until I put in the skewers. he/she hasn't bothered it since that time. On the downside, I've skewered myself a few times, but nothing serious.

In 2003 a gardening friend told me of a neighbor who attempeted to use cayenne pepper to deter raccoons and other critters from their garden by liberally sprinkling it around plants. What they were't considering was their cat which they'd had for 12 years who got it in her paws, cleaned her face, got it in one of her eyes, instinctually tried to scratch at it and as a result ended up severely damaging the cornea, thus rendering it blind in one eye.

So while the eyeball was not literally scratched out in it's entirety, I believe this falls into the category of scratching it's eye out. They now use sweet gum balls from the sweet gum tree as mulch instead.

best cat defense is a good fence.

Depending on the size of your beds, you could use bird netting. I use a 2-foot-high "rail" of it all the way around my beds to keep my dogs out for a while after I've fertilized -- they love to eat alfalfa pellets and cottonseed meal.

First, I own a cat and my neighbors do not, however there are a number of wild running cats in the "Hood". I live in the country so it is to be expected. I have used Tobasco sauce mixed with water to keep ALL animals out and away from my veggies. I Tbs Tobasco, a little dish wash soap (NOT DAWN) and a quart of water works for me. I first tested it with my cat by spraying a little on a piece of cloth and she would not even come near it let alone walk on it. Remember also that you are spraying it on the plants and in my case the containers/boards or what ever you want to call them. I think is safe, at least with my cat. Just MHO

Chicken wire on the ground. Works for me!

I use an itty-bitty squirt gun filled with water and a few drops of fresh lemon juice - just enough to scent the water. For my cats, it only takes 2-3 squirts; after that, you couldn't get them to come close to the forbidden object no matter what.


This really is awful to say, but I confess I usually laugh out loud when I squirt them. They're so horrified by water actually touching them I just can't help it. Then I think about Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West and laugh even harder.

I've been told that cats hate the smell of citrus. So orange peels scattered around the garden seems to work.

Beyond that, two years ago, I planted hot peppers at various places in the garden (a row of chilli peppers on the outside and a few rows of hot banana peppers in the middle). The cats wouldn't even come near them.

While I suppose it would be possible for it to be harmful to the cat, I think most people are missing the point. It's the smell that the cats hate. So, unless you're sprinkling it through their main walkway, I sincerely doubt that it would be a problem.

Cats have a pretty keen sense of smell. Chances are they'll get a good wiff of it long before they walk in it if you were particular about where you put it.

I have to agree with tjinpgh. For the most part cats won't get into red pepper. The don't like the smell and it alone should keep them away. Granted, my cat is declawed and so can't claw her eyes out, but to keep her out of the Christmas tree one year we literally took an old tree skirt and peppered it RED. She never got near it, stayed completely away. But, having said that, I never did that again either. The next year I put the big flakes of red pepper out, as it would be easier to clean up and also harder for the cat to actually get in her eyes or nose. It is also true they don't like citrus and orange oil especially, which has the added benefit of repelling ants and some other insects.

My neighbors cat disturbed all my seeds of course right after I put them in. So I just put stakes (bamboo) in the corners and literally wrapped thin netting from the craft store, cut to only 12", stapling the corners. I haven't had a problem since and stuff is sprouting, not all where I planted it, but it's coming up!
I have also gotten the suggestions of lemon juice sprayed around I'll try that next.