Put some hardware cloth or chicken wire over the pot; or put some sharp sticks in it. Cat urine is not as strong as dog's but it will still damage your trees.

Cute cat pic. A meower lemon tree.

What johnmerr said is good. Maybe put something else for the cat to sit on there too.

Good idea Dave, cats love looking out the window!

Put a taller table next to the window. Then put tin foil on soil. Cat will prefer table.

I really like the idea of the tin foil, I also spaced out the plants a little bit so he can walk on the stand. I read online about using cayenne pepper but i don't want to hurt my boy.

The foil works really well, I have to put it on my printer/fax machine to keep my babies from sitting/laying on it. Getting a taller table (or a cat tree) for the cats is also a winner. All cats like to be able to see outside and if its a sunny spot, bask in the heat of the sunshine.

Haaaa! Silly kitty in the pot! Cats rather be higher up than the ground, they can see better for prey and feel safer from predators. Bet the soil warms up more than the hardwood floor too. If you put a cozy cat bed there he may go for that option instead, could try it with a short table too.

My almost one year old kitten pulls the soil and rocks out of pots, bitten leaves of my large holiday cacti and sat atop them that I had to move them to a closed guestroom. My four small citrus are up high with little area to be walked upon, so less inviting.

We had a cat who loved grazing on whatever houseplants I had in the house so I eventually gave up on growing any considering I didn't know what was toxic or not. There are lots of good ideas given prior to my post. I would get a table or something soft for the cat to sleep on while sunning himself in the window. I miss my boy too.

Our 1-year old cat never seems to bother the plants. I had put in crinkled tin foil on the soil very early on when he was a kitten. Maybe that's why he never bothers them? But he does love it whenever I water the plants. He likes to watch the water come out the bottom I guess. Go figure.

Dawwwww!! Everyone’s cats are adorable even if they do end up messing with our plants

Dave- bet your kitty likes running water and maybe drinking from the faucet? Most cats will choose running water over a bowl of sitting water. They somehow know running water is likely fresher

jenny- I can’t get over how dang cute that is!! Such a pretty cat too but a bit scary how managed to climb down each balcony. Looks like the cat loved hiding and waiting behind foliage

kevin- if you grow cactus, you can sit a small one in the same pot lol. One of my cats like to use the softer, less spiny cactus as a paw rest. They don’t sit in my pots though, I usually leave a wide enough space that fits the length of their body. Otherwise they’ll lay down and try to push my pots away, knocking them over in the process. You can fold up some towels to make a bed for them if you don’t have a cat bed yet

kvetch - since our balconies were one long concrete row separated by glass partitions that didn't go all the way down, the cat (which was about a year old at the time of that pic) could walk from balcony to balcony by just scooting under each partition (there was about a 8" gap). The one sad thing though is that when I was moving, I was talking to her owner and asked about the cat since I wasn't seeing her anymore and the owner said that... well... kitty fell - yes 18 stories - since she also liked to hop up and walk on the rail. My main issue too was that the cat was never spayed so she would go into heat monthly and would come down to my spot and yowl up a storm for hours and then climb the balcony screens and other things. But she was a beautiful cat. And yes - they DO definitely want to be "hidden" so they can peep out (and have their back covered - like in a "den"). The foliage is a bonus to hide behind. I remember my Mom used to cat sit one of my sisters' cat and the cat would sit under a little table that had a big spider plant on it with the spider babies hanging down. The spider babies were like a curtain that she could lounge behind and she could bat at them if she wanted to. lol That's part of why that natural tendency for them to hop into boxes (which is probably another idea for using next to a big window) -

:-D

Jenny, how funny that the big cats love cardboard boxes just as much! They don’t look any different from our small ones when they play with the boxes like that. And that is so sad about the kitty :( Young ones are too adventurous to be cautious about that height or even understand it. I hope the owner won’t let any of their future kittens roam from that height anymore, and also spay/neuter them lol. I had to cat sit my sister’s cat in heat once so I know what you mean. She would yowl all night outside our bedroom doors every 3 hours or so! I’m glad that’s over, she was finally spayed afterwards lol

My worst nightmare.... we have turned this into a cat forum

LOL, you are all too funny. Matt, cute cat by the way. You always wonder what is going through their minds.lol

As for mine, he will only eat my plants, especially my ferns if I don't feed him when he asks. His way of sticking it to me. Now the minute he's in my plant room and I don't care if it 2 a.m. and meowing for food, up I go to in order to keep mine safe!

Oh, and I make sure I don't forget to clean his kitty litter everyday, God forbid!

Mike

Lol sometimes when I’m peeling grapefruit or oranges, I give my cat a sniff of my hands while they still have the delicious citrus oils on them. They hate it so much lol! Maybe you can try to get your cat to associate your trees with that smell. One of my cats did chew on some seedling leaves once but stopped after the seedling got to a certain maturity. I think once the leaves matured enough it prob began producing more of the citrus oils and stopped my cat from chewing them. Bad luck for your ferns tho Mike lol

Johnmerr, that is so funny.

My cats like to sleep in the top of my larger pots when they are outside, but rarely harm them in any way. Just a nice place to sleep in the semi-shade.