To cats, gardens appear to be the best areas to roam and use as one giant litter box. This can be incredibly frustrating for those who have spent hours tending to their garden. Not only can cat faeces be unsightly, it can contain bacteria and parasites such as toxoplasmosis so crops can’t be grown safely if there’s cat poop.
Fed up with constantly finding her neighbour’s cat’s poo in one particular area of her garden, a group member of the Gardening UK page on Facebook asked what she could do to deter cats.
Posting an image of her flower bed that had been destroyed by a cat, Katherine Smith wrote: “This is my east-facing flower bed, below the front window – currently covered in the neighbour’s cat poo.
“So ideas of what to plant/do with this space to make it less appealing to our feline friends please.”
The post received over 40 responses but the most suggested solution was to use certain kitchen items – one of which being pepper.
Trudy Grant said: “Sprinkle white pepper all over it! Puts cats and dogs off! One sniff and they’re off.”
Sandra Pescal wrote: “I had the same problem from a neighbour’s cat. I added some pepper to the area as I heard that they hate the smell and you know what, it worked a treat. You should try it to stop cats pooing in your garden.”
Claire Simmonds commented: “Ground pepper stops my lot (and their mates up the street) from pooing in my pots and they have stayed away since.”
Rachel Langley replied: “Pepper is what l use as my neighbour’s cat does it on my drive, not funny when you get in the car at night and get it all over your shoes.”
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Beth Taylor said: “Sprinkle ground pepper, white or black is fine. Seems to work well so far.”
Many households will already have pepper in their kitchen cupboards, but for those who don’t, it can be picked up from Asda for 70p and at Tesco for 90p.
Anna Peckering, gardening and pest expert at Pests Banned, also recommends using pepper to deter cats.
She said: “Pepper does deter cats. Any combination of pepper will work including black, white and/or cayenne pepper.
“The smell of pepper is what deters cats because they have a strong odour sense. By sprinkling pepper in your garden or making a spray, you can prevent cats from entering because they can smell the scent from far away.”
Another kitchen item gardeners suggested Katherine use is citrus peels. Margarithe Mayes said: “My garden is littered with various citrus fruit peels.
“My neighbour gave me that advice and since the citrus invasion, those pesky felines go elsewhere.
“Not even the size of my old English sheepdog deterred the cats. If anything, all she wanted to do is play.”
Caroline Stewart said: “Orange peel. I use that. Eat the inside and then put the peel all over the place, face down.
“Cats hate it, plus you get rid of slugs too as they go under the peel. You can then get rid of them and either replace the peel or reuse. Plus the orange is good for the garden too.”
Provided that cats don’t consume the peels, it won’t have any physical or medical impact on them.
Instead, cats will simply wander through the garden and sniff the citrus peels, decide they don’t like the smell and move to another area of the garden.
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