Cat-Friendly Gardens

Making your landscape a great place for cats with spaces for multiple activities can reduce the chances that your cat will leap the fence searching for variety elsewhere. Cats love choices for sitting, basking, viewing, snoozing, strolling and hiding. Unless you’re watching constantly, you don’t often see them move from space to space; they seem to magically shift from one location to the next – unless it’s crazy cat hour, where they run full speed through the landscape, only to suddenly stop to preen as though nothing happened.

If you can think like a cat, this helps. Where is a great place to sit in the sun? Where is a nice shady place? Where can I sit without being too visible, yet survey my domain? Where’s a good place for a drink? Pretty simple, or so it seems until you watch the cats roam a landscape, testing everything for suitability. Observe, note and adapt. Eventually you will move imperceptibly to encompass things from a feline perspective.

Crushed rock is perfectly fine for people, but cats prefer something smoother under their feet. If you ever thought you could’t consistently entice a cat to walk in an S-curve, you’re wrong: just create the curve with bricks set into crushed rock and they’ll gracefully follow the bricks almost every time. I say almost because when a cat is in a real hurry, he’ll run on anything.

Horizontal wood, either decking or planks, seems to be their preferred strolling medium, followed by any hard surface. They dont’ mind packed earth or decomposed granite either. Here, they use the deck to cross the garden, but stroll on the urbanite steps when they’re meandering.

Some plants are toxic to cats, just as they are to people. Others are a bit more of a surprise, like ornamental lilies. So far, we haven’t had any problems with plant toxicity, even though some listed plants grow in the garden – fruit trees, for example. If it’s a major concern, the ASPCA has some decent plants lists here.

Decks are fine when the cats are alone, but sometimes they’d rather get closer to the humans they live with. Long seat walls work well for this, although cats will make use of unoccupied chairs for sitting at human level.

It’s good to remember that design can’t resolve everything, especially when dealing with animals that happily jump fences, climb trees, prowl on roofs and get into uncomfortable situations with wild animals.

The wildlife-cat conflict goes both ways. Cats, being predators, are not especially compatible with bird feeders. They will also snag an occasional unwary bird, or on the positive side they might reduce the rodent population. Some cats couldn’t care less about hunting, blood, fur and feathers, so knowing your cat will let you make better choices about feeding birds.

This kind of goes with snoozing, except that it’s done in the open. Decks are great places for this, since they allow rolling around to ensure that every part of the cat receives the proper amount of sunlight and warmth. Sometimes a cat will do this on a path, but they prefer wood – perhaps because it’s just the right temperature and isn’t too cold on a frosty morning.

Although they prefer not to stroll on crushed rock, it’s perfectly fine for sunning. We tried lying on the stuff next to a cat, who didn’t appreciate the experiment. The rock was cooler in the shade, and conformed to the shape of whoever lay on it. Not everyone makes use of the crushed rock however – the cats’ consensus seems to be that decks are ideal for sunbathing.

As the cats say, a rain-filled saucer outdoors is worth two bowls filled with perfectly clean water indoors. A small pond works well, and seems a cleaner option since the water recirculates. The cats themselves aren’t bothered by stagnant water, so maybe it’s just a human bias.

The pond here has a mechanical pre-filter with a biofilter, so the water is clear and well-aerated. It’s across the garden from the exit, so for convenience the cats typically drink from closer sources, like rain-filled saucers unless they happen to be near the pond. They’ll even go from puddle to saucer to pond, lapping a drink each time as they move through the landscape.

Anything wood works here. Some cats prefer tree trunks, but any kind of horizontal wood seems preferable. They love wood seat walls and decking (this deck was assembled the day before the photo – just what she was waiting for!).

I’d like to think that once a cat has sharpened his claws he’s happy. Unfortunately, providing places to scratch outside does not translate to less scratching inside. Some cats just have to scratch, and once they have a preferred object (like a sofa or table) they’ll go to it no matter how much fun they’ve already had outdoors.

Nothing gets rid of hairballs like eating a bit of grass. It probably has vitamins and minerals, too. This is some old lawn grass that was left to grow in the meadow, but they’ll nibble on sedges and annual grasses, too. The key thing here is not to apply chemicals to the plants. Cats aren’t cows, so whatever damage they do is imperceptible in the landscape.

I suppose that a patch of wheatgrass could be planted, just for the cats. The disadvantage here is that it would eventually grow into a wheat crop, so it would either have to be trimmed or planted someplace where you want a wheat crop. Home-grown bread, anyone?

There is no crushed rock without something solid to step on. The cats walk, carefully placing each paw on a stone or brick as they stroll around the garden. Since the brick path curves, so do the cats.

I don’t know if walking on stones, carefully avoiding a misstep into the crushed rock amuses them. They certainly do walk on the crushed rock when the mood strikes them, and they will tear across it if they’re in a hurry. Still, it’s enjoyable to watch the deliberate motion of a cat as he goes about his tour of the garden.