Go Away, Your Boring Me!

Karl Gercens of Longwood Gardens took this photo of cat's yawn and he wrote: "It seems that garden kitties are so used to visitors that this one couldn't wait to get back to his cat nap! � at Jardim Bot�nico da Madeira."

Calendar Cats

So I had this brilliant idea to put together a "Cats in the Gardens" calendar next year -- pretty original offering, right? Wrong! I googled around and saw these cats and gardens calendars already on the market. Photographer Del Greger seems to be cranking them out as are a few others, so is there room in the open market for another one?

The Cat Lady's Garden

 There is an amazing Facebook page you all should visit maintained by Karen K. Schultz (The Cat Lady) at https://www.facebook.com/karen.k.schultz.9?fref=ts. She lives in Aurora, CO, and has an wonderful collection of photos from her daylily gardens and her many cats - both past and present. I have shared a few here.

In Memoriam for a Cat Lover and Gardener Extraordinaire

Anne Brooks was a floral designer and lecturer who maintained her garden, Hollywalk, in Brookeville, MD. With over 40 years of gardening experience, she was a tremendous source of plant information. We lost her in January to a stroke. She was a kind, generous soul and will be missed by many in our local gardening community.   
    In addition to gardening, she was also passionate about cats. In these photos from her garden taken by Dan Weil, you can see her much-loved senior cat enjoying a late summer day.
   A celebration of Anne's life will take place later this spring when her garden is in bloom.

Mighty Mouse

Alys Milner of the Gardening Nirvana blog submitted this big beauty.

"Mouse has an official home, but he doesn�t let on. He takes all his meals at our house, sleeps on our beds and generally makes himself comfortable. He�s charmingly adorable. Mouse lives for treats, so I�m partly to blame for his expanded waistline (Mouse weighs a whopping 16 pounds!). He collects kitty snacks from others as well, including my sister on her frequent visits.

"Mouse has many admirers, and would probably be insufferable if he were a man and not a cat. He assumes everyone loves him, and frankly why wouldn�t they? If I could change one thing about him, it would be his stealthy hunting skills. He loves the game of catch and release."

P.S. Check out, Lindy-Lu, another cat in Alys's household, posted here: http://catsingardens.blogspot.com/2014/09/lindy-hop.html

La Ni�a

David Creech from Happy Cat Farm submitted this orange feline. "This is Nina from Inverbrook Farm in Pennsylvania. I took this picture on a rainy day about five years ago, when I was working on the farm. I'm not going to lie; Nina could be mean as a snake. But on this afternoon, he (yes, he) looked so adorable snoozing on those bags of soil in the hoophouse that I couldn't help but grab my camera and take a few photos. Here's another one of Nina in the middle of a big ol' cat yawn: "

Cat Scat

 
"Well, well... what do we have here?" said Scot Poirier of GottaGrowIt.com.

When discussing garden successes and failures of 2014 on the Garden Chatter, the subject of cat scat came up. Yes, there are a couple downsides to cats in your garden. One is that the like freshly turned soil as a litterbox.

To discourage cats from pooping in your garden, there are several techniques you can use. First, create a sharp barrier around your beds using sticks or rocks or pine cones. Second, try natural repellant sprays on the area you want them to avoid. (You can also try a motion sensor sprinkler, but you may be sprayed yourself so I tend not to recommend them.) Third, make an attractive spot for them to use in a far off corner. Plant catnip or catmint there and create a sandbox for them to use.