HELP!!! Something (cat?) digging up my pots

HeidiHeidi

Please, can someone tell me what I can do to stop something (cat/cats, I'm guessing, but might be foxes) repeatedly digging up my window boxes and pots???

I'm demented at this stage - I've spent time and money potting them up, they're lovely - and every few days I come out to find them dug up and plants scattered far and wide around the garden.

I've tried slices of lemons and limes (they supposedly don't like the smell of citrus), I've tried coffee grounds (same reason), I've tried big stones between the plants (they just fling them around the place as well, and they're a good potato size, so heavy), I've tried rough gravel on top of the soil, I've tried cayenne pepper, I've tried sticking cocktail sticks in the soil.

At this stage, my window boxes have all of the above, and STILL I came home to day to find plants and bulbs strewn far and wide.

I'm absolutely at my wits end at this stage - does anyone know of a really strong chemical or spray that will deter them?

Or any other solution? Covering them in netting seems to be the only failsafe, but kinda defeats the purpose of having lovely window boxes.

I'm seriously considering looking for some barbed wire and burying it in the soil.

PLEASE HELP!!!

Trigger Happy

We had this issue for years. It was foxes in our case. Putting down pepper helps but tends to get washed away in the rain.

A few months we got one of those 'bean to cup' coffee machines and I now put the spent coffee grinds in the flower beds. The foxes hate it and now, generally, dont go near our beds every week or so. The soil loves it. Win win.

HeidiHeidi

I've been finding eggs buried in pots for years, which I've assumed were foxes (where they got raw, shop-bought eggs with date stamps on them, I have absolutely no idea - so if anyone can answer that for me as well, please do!!) - but those were pots on the ground.

The window boxes are up about 3 feet off the ground, I just can't imagine a fox jumping up there to dig it up. But maybe they do?

I'll keep going with the coffee grounds so, but it'll get to the stage where there's more grounds than soil in the boxes. I was so sure that the pepper would work, maybe I just have to keep re-supplying the pot with that as well.

Still open to the strongest chemical legally available though!

looksee

Do you have squirrels around your area? Rabbits are also divils for digging things up, but not really in window boxes! Also don't underestimate how much damage crows or even blackbirds can do once they put their mind to it. Could you make a curved 'cage' out of wire netting and just stand it over the plants.

I doubt it is cats, they would not be bothered with digging up window boxes, they are not likely to be using them as litter trays - you would know if they were. I stopped small birds from stripping my containers of primroses by 'planting' upright twiggy twigs between them, it seemed to stop them ok. Though moving them away from the bird feeders, so that seed did not fall into them, helped too 😁

SuperBowserWorld

Cats dig if they are s******. So you should notice that! They won't be digging up plants or scattering them around the place.

Goldengirl

I second the coffee grounds . Had the same issue about a year ago and found an egg that had gone rotten in the soil 🤮

Door cam showed a fox.

Sprayed lemon cif everywhere he had been it gets rid of their marking scent .

Put bloody great rocks in the planters but he still got in but less so .

Then covered the earth with orange bag netting placed rocks on top and they finally stopped.

Now I just use a combo of coffee grounds and rocks .

I see them walking across the drive at night on Cam but they don't linger .

greasepalm

Foxes will have no issue scaling a 6 foot wall , when i sprayed vinegar on my weeds it kept them out for over a week until washed away. Maybe an electronic pest deterrence.

The Continental Op

An off the wall suggestion - magpies? They will take hens eggs and do cache food by burying it. I really can't imagine them burying a hens egg but I have watched them go in through an open window and take an egg out of a tray.

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123967494#Comment_123967494

I thought it was magpies until I saw the fox on the video .

I suppose it could be either or for the OP.

The citrus scent and netting works for both .

Don:t think any wild life like the smell or taste of coffee grounds .but any scent needs to be kept topped up every time it rains .

billyhead

I reckon it's a fox. Had the same issue and that's what it turned out to be.

con747

Buy a cheap cctv camera and you'll find out soon enough, shop bought eggs though. Maybe a 2 legged fox.

HeidiHeidi

The eggs were the most bizarre things! I've found at least 6 over the years, one buried very deep in a big pot, others just below the surface in smaller ones.

I definitely don't think we've any squirrels or rabbits in the area (it's Dublin 8, a street of terraced houses, no street trees or grassy areas at all) - maybe it is a fox after all, I just couldn't imagine them jumping up onto a window box that fills the window sill and is full of plants - I just find it easier to imagine a cat doing that. But whatever it is has shifted some heavy stones as well sometimes that I've put between plants in other pots, so maybe it is - there's definitely at least one fox based on the road.

Whatever it is, I'm getting seriously pissed off with it! And would like to find some solution that would keep it the feck out of my nice window boxes!

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123967715#Comment_123967715

You can get a decent cctv camera for less than €30, put it on the inside window sill set to motion detection and at least you know what your dealing with. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tapo-Security-Rotational-Definition-C210/dp/B08ZNTM1X1

HeidiHeidi

I actually have a Ring doorbell that I haven't yet stuck up, so I've put that out in the garden on the ground facing the windows, lets see if anything triggers it tonight.

I just hope some fecker doesn't find it and nick it!