Re: [CH] sort of off topic- cats and plants

The Old Bear (oldbear@arctos.com)
Wed, 28 Jan 1998 12:07:54 -0500 

In ChileHeads Digest, vol.4 no.286, Lorraine Heidecker wrote:

| Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:18:26 -0700 (PDT)
| From: Lorraine Heidecker <lheid@saclink.csus.edu>
| Subject: Re: [CH] sort of off topic- cats and plants
| 
| As an avid cat lover and owner of countless dozens of them  
| (sequentially during my lifetime - no more than 14 at one time!) 
| I don't think using a pepper spray to keep the lil' darlings off 
| your houseplants is cruel.  Be warned tho - some cats are not 
| deterred by hot peppers.
| 
| I read somewhere that a few mothballs scattered in the dirt around 
| the plant my deter cats.

As with humans, different cats react differently to chile pepper. 
We have a pair of new kittens who seem to have decided that the 
the potted house plants are good for eating, digging, and batting 
about.

I sprinkled a goodly amount of crushed red pepper (the ordinary 
supermarket variety like they server in shakers at pizza joints) 
on top of the soil in the planters and this seems to deter one 
of the kittens but not the other.

We then added mothballs (my late mother's preferred anti-kitten 
solution) which also failed to discourage the more aggressive 
feline -- and had the downside of making our living room smell 
like napthalene.

Finally, I went out and bought some "hardware cloth" which is a 
wire screen material with 3/8-inch to 1/2-inch square mesh, 
welded at the cross points and tinned or galvanized.  I cut it 
into four-inch wide strips which I bent into rings the inside 
diameter of the plant pots with the top edge of the mesh cut like 
this:
       +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +
       |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | 
     >-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+->
       | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
     >-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+->
       | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
     >-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+->

making kind of a crown around the inside edge of the pot.  The flared 
wire edge the makes it difficult for the kitten to get into the pot 
or to use the edge of the pot as a place to put her front paws while 
gnawing on the plant.  Please note that the objective is not to harm 
the kittens but to make it difficult for them to get at the plants.

The alternative, of course, is the use of land mines.

Cheers,
The Old Bear