JoJo Kitty

Jojo is the spoiled kitty of Glenn and Karen Bell who live in the Del Webb Arbors retirement community in North Carolina. Jojo is a rescue and her human parents glassed in the porch so she can admire the gardens year-round. 

Her other favorite activity includes her daily supervised garden walk with her human dad to admire the visitors of the pocket pollinator garden designed by @gardenthoughtfully, Heather Andrews. 

Heather Andrews of The Thoughtful Gardener sent these fun pics.
(See the previous cats in gardens she has shared here.)

Sweet Scents

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Maple & Fern 🐱 (@maplexfern)

I was thrilled to see this video on Instagram of this gorgeous kitty named Maple as she explored her home garden and sniffed some white Rhododendron blossoms.

Maple is a 3-year-old rescue cat adopted from the Prince Edward Island Humane Society in Canada, whose owners are veterinarians.

They obviously take great care of their pets and have them leash-trained.

I'll share another video next week featuring her sister, Fern. I believe they are both Maine Coons. 

See more videos and photos featuring Maple at https://www.instagram.com/maplexfern/

Waldorf the Hard Worker

Heather Andrews of The Thoughtful Gardener sent these fun pics of another hard-working garden cat. (See the previous cats in gardens she has shared here.)

She writes, "Meet Waldorf, the official cat greeter at Stoney Creek Valley Farm. Not only does she have the purrfect personality to great customers for grower and mom, Katie*, but she also trills her way with her purr into customers' hearts."

*Katie Hutchison College is the owner of both the farm and the cat!

Plant Lady is the NEW Cat Lady?

Scrolling through Amazon one night, I came across this "Plant Lady is the NEW Cat Lady" T-shirt design (see https://amzn.to/4aB3ssh*). This gave me pause, as I'm both -- as are many of us! I get the joke --  a play on the crazy cat lady stereotype - but I've been a "crazy plant lady" for as long as I've been a cat person. So I went searching and, sure enough, there IS a "Crazy Cat and Plant Lady" shirt (see https://amzn.to/4bxvciK*). Whoo-hoo! added that my wish list cart just now.

Amd while you are in the shirt-ordering mood, we previously shared this design perfect for Cats in Gardens lovers: "I Just Want To Work In My Garden And Hangout With Cats" (see https://amzn.to/3WWY1AH)

*These are Amazon affiliate links. We may earn a few pennies if you click on it, but it will not affect the price you pay for products there.  BTW, the shirts come in several color choices.

The Everything Bagel

 

Joni and Thomas of NativeRootScaping.com, 

based in the Washington, DC, area shared these photos and wrote:

Here are some photos of our cat, Bagel in our garden. Bagel was a feral cat, who as a kitten, became friends with our then puppy, Poppy. By November, as it was getting colder, we just had to take her in. Five years later and she’s the best cat we’ve ever had! She loves spending time in the garden, climbing trees, and frolicking in the neighborhood :) She’s still besties with Poppy and they love to play outside and cuddle inside 

Persimmon Party

I reported on my encounter with "Percy" at Longwood Gardens last fall here.  It turns out that Percy aka Persimmon is actually a huge internet start!

It all started with this viral tweet:

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D

@SarahMackAttack

Tonight I saw a massive orange cat get escorted out of Longwood Gardens. I asked “is he not welcome here?”, and the guy sighed & said “He shows up at the most inopportune moments”. So now, obviously, I want an entire sitcom about their relationship.

Hundreds people replied to Sarah to let her know the cat is a garden fixture and to share their own tales of seeing Persimmon at Longwood.

I think one of my favorite replies was this one:

He is actually a she and her name is Persimmon!! She likes to take long naps in the sun pic.twitter.com/NfHGXtKL9m

— no__caps (@no__caps) September 18, 2022

The Twitter consensus of why the cat was kicked out of that particular garden area (a nighttime event in the Conservatory) was that he was making himself a nuisance and possible trip hazard. Here is the thread summary at Bored Panda.

I'm looking forward to my next Longwood visit and catching up with Percy again. 

Use Caution at Easter Time: Lilies are Toxic to Felines

Keep cats away from Easter Lilies and other Asiatic Lilies (Lilium spp.) as cats can suffer acute kidney failure within a very short period of time from just licking a few pollen grains off their fur. (Daylilies, by the way, are not true lilies and so are not a plant of concern around cats.)

See more about Lilies and Cats at:
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm393028.htm

Read more about Cat-Friendly Gardening here:
http://catsingardens.blogspot.com/2015/10/gardenig-is-more-fun-with-cats.html

Here is a List of SAFE Plants for Cats:
http://catsingardens.blogspot.com/2015/11/nontoxic-plants-for-cats.html

In the last several years, many veterinary webpages and cat-related websites have sprung up to educate cat owners on the dangers of lilies, such as noliliesforkitties.com. Here is a graphic shared on one of them:

Top Photo Source: FDA 
(This is an update of an earlier Cats in Gardens blog post.)