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Petscaping: Top Tips for a Cat-Friendly Yard

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A lovely outdoor area or a sizable backyard is essential for many people looking for a home. Such an area is intended for entertaining guests and providing you with beautiful outdoor family space. But did you know you could develop a fun and safe space where your cat could enjoy your backyard?

Cat owners have been redesigning their outdoor spaces in a hugely popular trend known as 'petscaping' for years to give their pets the ideal play area.

However, modifying your outside area to accommodate your cat is no simple task. With so many factors to consider, we've whittled down a few necessities for creating an excellent outdoor habitat for your cat.

Understanding Petscaping

Petscaping is precisely what the name implies - creating an outdoor area for your pet's needs.

The goal is to use petscaping best practices to safeguard your cat or dog from dangerous chemicals and deadly plants while guarding your prized landscape plants against curious—and occasionally destructive—pets.

7 Petscaping Tips for a Fun and Safe Backyard

1)  Choose Your Materials Carefully

With many materials available for backyard landscaping aesthetics, such as bricks, stacked stone, paving stones, concrete, wood, etc., it can be difficult to choose! Select cat-friendly materials that will highlight the natural features of your backyard and that are durable enough to withstand harsh elements.

2)  Plant feline-friendly plants

A backyard isn’t complete without some plants - they're always a good shout when it comes to adding a touch and will help keep your backyard nice, tidy, aesthetically appealing, and with good air quality.

However, to keep your backyard cat safe, model your garden around with feline-friendly plants.

Catnip should be a top addition to your backyard for a scent that will leave your cat grateful. Cat thyme, honeysuckles, olive, chamomile, basil, valerian, and some fruits blend perfectly with the scenery and feature scents your cat will enjoy.

Cats also enjoy lurking in taller grass such as Bermuda grass and have been known to nibble on bits of grass.

Consider planting sweet-smelling pollinator plants where you and your cat can enjoy watching birds, butterflies, and other natural phenomena. Cats enjoy chasing insects such as butterflies around the yard.

Pro tip: Avoid growing plants near prominent features like doorways or jutting corners since cats want to mark their territory there.

3)  Remove any potential dangers

Just as there are plants safe for cats, some plants are lethal to them. Plants like lilies, Azaleas, daffodils, Sago Palms, etc., are all highly toxic to cats if eaten and can be fatal. Be sure to avoid them.

Here’s some more information and a list of some of the unsafe plants for cats.

4)  Add Safety and deterrents

This helps keep cats away from backyard areas that are off limits, such as delicate plants or bird’s nests. Use citrus fruit peel or the herb rue to deter cats from sections of the backyard that are off-limits sensitive plants or bird nests.

Prickly or hardy plants or stone chippings will also help keep kitty out of your secure zones because cats also avoid regions that hurt their paws and claws.

If you have a fishpond where your cat could accidentally fall in, covering it with a wire mesh might help keep your cat away. Additionally, if you intend to build the pond from the ground up, incorporate a low edge area that will enable the cat to get out if they fall in.

5)  Install protective fencing

A solid cat fence is always a good idea to ensure both safety and fun in the confines of your existing garden or backyard.

While you can’t guarantee that the fence will keep your cat inside, ensure it keeps other animals out, especially for outdoor cats. Ensure that the wall is secure and has no gaps the neighboring animals can enter.

Placing cat netting or a mesh some meters down the ground to the top of a fence can help keep the felines inside the backyard while preventing other animals from digging their way inside.

6)   Consider cat enrichment

Take cat enrichment into consideration to keep your cat stimulated and entertained. Create a play area equipped with toys, feline-friendly plants, vertical perches, cat trees, and many more. Add concrete-secured logs to make scratching posts, then cover the concrete with a layer of bark.

Be sure to also station an outdoor shelter that can provide warmth, privacy, shade, sunbathing, and comfort during hot or rainy weather. Check out our collection of outdoor cat houses and other helpful cat accessories that will elevate your backyard.

7)    Take care of pests and parasites

Use safe pest and parasite control techniques to ensure your pet enjoys the outdoors as much as possible. These include treating your grass for fire ants, picking up litter, spraying for mosquitoes, keeping trash cans closed, and setting yellow jacket traps. This way, you can be confident that only the safest chemicals are in used and your cat is free of parasites.

Wrapping up

When executed effectively, petscaping your outdoor space can significantly benefit you and your furry friend. The space will allow you to lounge and entertain, but it will also foster an atmosphere that the two of you will undoubtedly enjoy.

Although designing fun and secure outdoor area is exciting, it also needs a lot of preparation, detail, accuracy, and skill to make it appear as stunning as you expect. Don't forget to seek expert assistance.



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