Keep Cats Out Of Your Houseplants With This Budget-Friendly Hack

Cats are great house pets that may, indeed, be smarter than their owners. While they can be cuddly and quirky, they are prone to mischief, tampering, and general debauchery around the home. Have a glass of water near a ledge? Your cat is sure to find it and knock it over. Your houseplants are not safe either, no matter how high up you hang them. One neat hack you have probably never considered is to use plastic forks to keep your cats out of your plants.

Domestic house cats, like their feline ancestors, do naturally consume plants. Sometimes it's for the taste while other times it can be a symptom of a larger issue like boredom or stress. While some plants can be more dangerous than others, many common houseplants are poisonous to cats and have a number of undesirable outcomes such as diarrhea, vomiting, shaking, drooling, or even death.  

Furthermore, some cats may decide to utilize the soil of your houseplants as an additional litter box, causing harm to your plants and likely a difficult-to-find and unpleasant odor in your home. As such, the presence of your cats in, near, or around your houseplants can be detrimental to both your plants and your furry friends. It's generally a good rule to discourage them from interacting with any of your gorgeous greens, and this fork hack may be your best and cheapest option to cat-proof your plants.

It sounds silly, but if hilarious cat videos on TikTok or Instagram have taught us anything, it's that cats do not like to step on unpleasant surfaces. This is where the concept for the fork hack begins. By placing the handle of plastic forks in the soil with the tines facing upward, you can create a plastic minefield in the pots of your plants that will surely deter your cats from stepping or playing in the soil. In this way, it will hopefully also prevent your cats from eating or destroying the foliage of your houseplants.

Head to your local dollar store or even the grocery store and pick up a box of plastic forks. For each of your houseplants, place the forks in the soil every few inches around the entire surface of the pot, particularly in areas where you may already have noticed your cat digging. For shallow pots, it may be good to use a pair of scissors to shorten the length of the handle before inserting the forks into the soil and leaving the roots of your plants undisturbed.

This plastic fork hack is a great option because it's quick, simple, and affordable. Sticky paper or spike mats, which are also known to keep cats off of precious surfaces, can become expensive, especially if you have many houseplants to protect. Therefore, the plastic fork hack should be your go-to for the health of your plants and your pets.