Most cats don't like the smell of citrus. If you scatter lemon rinds through your garden (or put out bags of dried orange peels among the plants), the scent can do a lot to keep cats away.
People have used mothballs and cayenne pepper to protect their garden beds from neighborhood cats, but these can cause harm to animals and children, so are not advisable. If the smell of grapefruit peels and the like aren't doing the job, you can also try various oils (including lavender, mustard, and eucalyptus) or even coffee grounds sprinkled among the flowers.
Certain plants can be grown in your garden that are said to help in many cases, rue being at the top of the cat-repellent list with lavender also frequently mentioned. Even the American pennyroyal, which yields an essential oil used as an insect repellent, gives off an odor that cats give a wide berth to, and their purple-blue flowers make a nice color splash.
One gardener said she cut up lengths of hose and placed them around the bushes and plants. She had heard that cats are afraid of snakes and that they'd stay out of her garden if they thought it was full of snakes. No word on whether her "scaresnakes" worked, but it's a good way to recycle old garden hoses.
Of the many commercial cat repellents on the market, one called Shake-Away, sounds promising. The harmless, organic powder is supposed to smell to cats like the urine of predators (fox, coyotes and bobcats). The promise is that you shake the product throughout your garden and no cat will venture in. Another similar product I heard about is called Coyote Urine. With this one, you mix the powder with water and then spray your garden.
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