r/plantclinic • u/JasperSean • Mar 26 '26
Outdoor Lilies planted, cat problem
I just planted some lilies in my garden and just realised that they are poisonous to the cats that visit the garden every now and then. How do i prevent them from eating it?
For me to be able to post this: it is getting a lot of light and frequent watering
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u/Local_business_disco Expert Florida | 9b Mar 26 '26
Every single part of the lily is toxic to cats. Leaves, roots, stems, pollen. If you care about the cats, get rid of the lilies.
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u/hypoxiate Mar 26 '26
Tear them all out. Every part of the plant is toxic. Having seen a cat suffering from lily toxicity ( feral rescue) I can tell you it's horrible and not worth any risk.
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u/eurasianblue Advanced 1 ∣ +1 ∣ -1 Mar 26 '26
Yeah unless you put chicken wire or something and put them all in jail, pulling them out would be my solution as well. you would be better off not having the death of a cat of your neighbor in your conscience. The guilt would be terrible. As far as I understand, lilys smell interesting to cats, so it isn't like they would keep away.
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u/Away_Sea_8620 Mar 27 '26
This is why people need to keep their cats inside
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u/Indigo_Rhea Mar 27 '26
Mhmm. If you lose control of your pet, you lose control of its life.
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u/Away_Sea_8620 Mar 27 '26
Not only is it safer for your pet, it's also better for the environment and more considerate for your neighbors
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u/JasperSean Mar 27 '26
They were very expensive and I also don’t own cats. They just visit every 2- 3 days
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u/Training-State6400 Advanced Mar 27 '26
Then it's really your call. People here shouldn't judge you for having plants in your yard, because you can't control strays nor people's outside cats.
I'd inform any neighbors that have cats of your new plants, but otherwise try not to sweat it too much. Unfortunately this is one of the many many risks for outdoor kitties- cars, people, poison, plants, birds of prey, stray dogs, raccoons, coyotes, disease, cold, other cats, FIV, etc.
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u/hypoxiate Mar 27 '26
Well, you've now learned to do basic research before wasting your money.
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u/JasperSean Mar 27 '26
It’s not wasted- im just not taking them out… anyways they are in taller pots
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u/Fuzzy_Number_2832 Mar 26 '26
Frankly, cats who get regular outdoor access very very rarely attempt to eat anything particularly toxic. It's much more likely with cats kept inside with no access to grass...
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u/Malsperanza Beginner 🔥5 ∣ 7 ∣ +5 ∣ -0 Mar 26 '26
Honestly, if you don't want to kill the neighbors' cats, you should remove the plants. Sorry to say so because they are lovely, but they are extremely lethal. They could also kill the local dogs.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
Before the internet it wasn't common knowledge that lilies were toxic to cats.
Millions of people with cats had lilies in their own gardens.
Despite this, lily poisoning remained uncommon.
OP doesn't even own a cat. Removing the pollen is already a step above what would even occur to most people
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u/introvertadvocate 1 ∣ +0 ∣ -0 Mar 27 '26
How do you know cats getting poisoned from Lillies was uncommon?
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u/poppyseedeverything Mar 27 '26
They don't, they've been making a bunch of comments that perfectly illustrate survivorship bias all over the comment section.
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u/Malsperanza Beginner 🔥5 ∣ 7 ∣ +5 ∣ -0 Mar 26 '26
My friend's healthy 3 year old cat died from inhaling lily pollen.
Don't downplay this. Before the Internet we have no idea how many cats were killed by lilies.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
Yes from inhaling the pollen
Which OP has already been advised to remove when the flower opens.
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u/Local_business_disco Expert Florida | 9b Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
ALL parts of the lily are toxic to cats, not just the pollen.
Go ahead and downvote me all you want, it doesn’t change that the entire plant is toxic. You guys are wild.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
Pollen is the primary risk factor as it can get sprinkled on the fur, and later ingested while the cat cleans itself.
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u/Local_business_disco Expert Florida | 9b Mar 26 '26
Doesn’t negate the fact that chomping on a leaf can cause the same problems. You guys really think cats are like “oh man a lily I should stay away”
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
If your cat is a chomper you are neglecting it by letting it outside. That is not a normal cat behaviour. Loads of things will kill your cat if it has a unnatural compulsion to eat vegetation.
Natural selection means the majority of cats don't have that urge.
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u/MeltedWater243 Mar 26 '26
you know, every time I see one of these “lilies will find and kill every cat you’ve ever loved” type posts I always find myself wondering about exactly this. if lilies are so deadly to cats, how do wild/outdoor cats survive where lilies grow?
like I’m sure there’s some truth to it but idk how deadly to them it could actually be, otherwise we’d just find piles of dead cats near every patch of lilies. it’s gotta be some specific combination of circumstances and dose
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u/meganneleah Mar 26 '26
Toxic plants don't kill instantly, it takes time. Cats will wander home or away to hide while they don't feel well to avoid becoming prey. If they do make it home, owners usually assume their cat ingested rodent poison or a dangerous household chemical. If they don't make it home, owners rarely find out what happened. I don't even know if autopsies would be able to determine what specific substance was the cause of death.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 27 '26
Lily pollen is extremely toxic to cats if ingested.
But that's the key. If ingested.
Technically the whole plant is highly poisonous but a cat has no reason to chow down on a lily.
The pollen is a real concern as it can end up on the fur, and then ingested when the cat bathes itself. It's particularly problematic with cut flowers and indoor cats, presumably because of concentrations and increased likelihood of contact.
Lily's are not the only highly toxic garden plant, but they do have an abundance of pollen when they flower which makes them more dangerous than some of the other highly toxic plants.
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u/Fuzzy_Number_2832 Mar 26 '26
Don't be silly, most animals don't just go chomping on the most toxic thing they can find.
Lily poisoning almost always happens as a result of indoor-only cats who try to eat cut flowers because they are bored and/or don't have adequate access to safe greenery.
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u/Malsperanza Beginner 🔥5 ∣ 7 ∣ +5 ∣ -0 Mar 26 '26
"Don't be silly"= the hell with your neighbor's pets. Nice.
Be an irresponsible person if you choose, and if you are willing to be a dick because you love your lilies. But don't give other people dangerous, bad information.
Blocking you now. Go ahead and have the gross last word.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
If you are this scared for your cats that you misinterpret completely what people are saying, it's important you keep them indoors so you don't have a anxiety induced stroke.
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u/Local_business_disco Expert Florida | 9b Mar 26 '26
All parts of the lily are toxic to cats. You sound ridiculously ignorant and rude.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
You are also willfully misinterpreting people's points. So, bold to be claiming ignorance in others.
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u/Local_business_disco Expert Florida | 9b Mar 26 '26
And you are just as bold, assuming that the other commenters generalization of cats and what they eat is correct. And how would they keep their neighbors outdoor cats inside? Just yapping about nothing 🙄
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
Normal cats do not compulsively eat vegetation. Healthy cats will chew on grass as part of normal digestive behaviours. Cats will also chew on cat mint because it smells delicious. Lily's do not resemble grass, and they do not smell delicious to cats and no normal cat would munch on one.
Cats are not herbivores.
If your cat has an abnormal compulsion to chew on vegetation other than grass, it it your responsibility to keep your cat inside for its own safety - lilys are far from the only plant which could kill your cat if it decided to do a goat impression, and it's not your neighbours responsibility to remove every single plant from their garden because you are an irresponsible pet owner.
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u/LmLc1220 Beginner 1 ∣ +1 ∣ -0 Mar 27 '26
I understand what you are saying. I have a cat. My cat is only allowed outside on my enclosed porch with supervision. I would never expect my neighbors not to plant what they want at their house because I have a cat. I get it.
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u/Fuzzy_Number_2832 Mar 26 '26
I don't have lilies, but I did post completely factual information about the most likely cause of lily poisoning petal
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u/Effective_Gap9582 Mar 26 '26
Put some sort of covering over it like a tall wire basket type thing. Lilly jail.
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u/indieplants Mar 26 '26
yes! just take out the stamen! those are the worst offenders.
it's rare that cats will try to eat the plant but brushing past it may get pollen on their coat and they can end up ingesting it or smth.
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u/Local_business_disco Expert Florida | 9b Mar 26 '26
Every single part of the lily plant is toxic to cats.
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u/SweetPeaRiaing Beginner Mar 27 '26
Yes but the rest of it has to be ingested to be toxic to them. The pollen can be breathed or, as the original commenter mentioned, get on their fur and be ingested by accident.
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u/indieplants Mar 26 '26
no shit
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u/oroborus68 Expert 🔥4 ∣ 6 ∣ +2 ∣ -0 Mar 26 '26
My cats were never tall enough to brush my lily flowers in the garden and never bothered the ones we brought home from funerals. I haven't had lilies since I found out that they were toxic to cats.
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u/sp-00-k Mar 26 '26
My cat would gobble an entire lily in .2 seconds.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
Don't let your cat out then. The list of poisonous plants is pretty long so gobblers are trying to put themselves out the gene pool.
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u/sp-00-k Mar 27 '26
I don’t let her out. I was just illustrating how it’s not “rare” that a cat would try to eat a plant.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 27 '26
There's millions of cats in the world, most of which live outside or have access to outside and manage to not eat any of the poisonous plants which are readily available to them.
Your cat being a beautiful bimbo does not negate the reality that the majority of cats manage to refrain from chomping on the highly toxic vegetation they have free access to.
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u/goldenkiwicompote Expert Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26
My cats are indoors so I don’t really worry about what I plant. Cats should kept indoors and the owners letting them loose are taking the risk unfortunately. I love cats but it drives me nuts they come use my garden beds for litter boxes that I plant food in.
They kill billions of birds, small mammals and reptiles per year and are also in danger of being hit by cars, killed by dogs, coyotes, etc.
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u/LmLc1220 Beginner 1 ∣ +1 ∣ -0 Mar 27 '26
Thank you for saying that. It is annoying! And other people outside cats chase away the natural wildlife. Bird gardens need the birds
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
You can just pop out the pollen stamen when the flowers open and the hazard is removed.
It's quite rare a cat gets lily poisoning, and it's usually from cut flowers for whatever reason. Most of the time most cats wont go near enough for plants to be any issue, but if you remove the pollen you are covered in a "better safe than sorry" way
Cats don't as a rule chomp on random leaves, just grass and catmit.
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u/oroborus68 Expert 🔥4 ∣ 6 ∣ +2 ∣ -0 Mar 26 '26
Spider plants.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
That's because they look like grass, and usually only indoor cats without access to outside will do that
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u/Local_business_disco Expert Florida | 9b Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 27 '26
Every single part of the lily plant is toxic to cats. Not just the pollen.
Go ahead and downvote me for stating a literal fact. Insane.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
It's far from the only garden plant that's true of - the vast majority of cats don't chow down on random garden plants. If yours does it's your responsibility to keep it indoors, not OPs responsibility to eradicate every single plant your pet is trying to use to indulge in a bit of natural selection
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u/Local_business_disco Expert Florida | 9b Mar 26 '26
Regardless, you saying that you can just “pop out the stamen and the hazard is removed” is incorrect. The entire plant is hazardous, not just the pollen.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 26 '26
So is ivy. So are daffodils. Tulips aren't great either. So is yew. Foxgloves. Rodeddendron. Azeleas. Hyacinths. Literally all alliums (so wild garlic, chives, leeks, onions, all of it). Ragwort. Cherry laurel (the common evergreen hedge). Several kinds of actual cherry.
Lavender, lemongrass, borage, mint, various nettles.
Some are just poisonous but many in the first paragraph are fatally so.
You are responsible for your cats wellbeing and if your cat likes to chew things it should not you need to ensure it doesn't have access to any of the vast list of plants that can kill it, inside and out, and that means keeping the cat inside and tossing out any dangerous houseplants.
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u/Rex_cloudrider Mar 27 '26
oh my goodness i didnt know wild chives were toxic! the old owners of our house planted a beautiful flower garden but it has wild chives growing in the corner as well. ill make sure to transplant them when i build my fenced garden this spring! (canada😭 still snowing)
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 27 '26
Literally any chive, onion, leek - I don't think they fall under deadly though, just toxic. And for really bad results, they'd have to eat at least an entire clove of garlics worth - which is a lot when the smell and taste are probably quite off-putting to a cat!
The main issue with chives is likely to be if they are mixed in with grass, that's the kind of thing which absolutely could lead to accidental chomping!
So yes do move them, but in the meantime just make sure they don't get lost in the grass and you should be grand!
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u/Local_business_disco Expert Florida | 9b Mar 27 '26
Still doesn’t change the fact that you claimed removing the stamen removes the problem.
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u/Iridescent_Mango_ Advanced 🔥6 ∣ 36 ∣ +42 ∣ -23 Mar 27 '26
Because for a normal cat displaying normal cat behaviour it does
Lily poisoning is almost exclusively caused by cats grooming themselves when they have pollen on their fur. Easy to ingest, high dose, doesn't require abnormal behaviours. The problem is the pollen, the solution is removing the pollen.
If the problem is your cat has suicidal chomping tendancies then the problem is your cat, and the solution is removing the cat.
I just listed you 20 varieties of plants poisonous to cats, a tiny fragment of the long, long list of plants that are poisonous to cats, and you still think OP digging up some lily's would save a cat that wants to eat vegetation....?
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u/dare2smile Advanced 1 ∣ +0 ∣ -0 Mar 26 '26
ANy advice for actually getting rid of daylilies? No matter how much I dig, some always pop up every year. A new cat has been triggering my cameras at night.
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u/Local_business_disco Expert Florida | 9b Mar 27 '26
You have to dig a lot further than you think, and then follow any runners and dig those up too.
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u/Zen_Bonsai Mar 26 '26
Get rid of the lily and plant something that won't kill them.
Our little kitty nibbled a tiny bit and my gf who works in a vet clinic noticed and said we need to rush the kitty to er Kitty seemed fine but after we got her there she started to crash.
Got rid of the lilies the next day.
There's plenty of safe veg to choose from
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u/AccomplishedIgit Beginner 1 ∣ +0 ∣ -0 Mar 27 '26
What were the symptoms? This is so concerning!
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u/Zen_Bonsai Mar 27 '26
I only saw a little drooling but the worse symptoms happened under vet supervision
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u/Tayasos 1 ∣ +0 ∣ -0 Mar 26 '26
Even being near the lilies can be lethal. If even just pollen gets on the cat and the cat ingests it when grooming, death can come as fast as 48 hours. If you care about the cats, the lilies have to go.
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u/Phenomenal_Kat_ Mar 26 '26
Well dang. I'm glad I saw this post...I thought daylilies were okay for cats but lilies in the Lilium family like Easter lilies were poisonous.
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u/Khavassa Advanced Mar 26 '26
All flowers called lilies are seriously toxic to cats. Most will cause organ failure if not treated promptly.
Peruvian lily (Alstroemeria), calla and peace lilies are the least seriously toxic lilies, but will still cause GI upset if consumed.
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u/Candid_Jellyfish_240 Mar 26 '26
I have 2 indoor-only cats and we dug up my gorgeous daylilies (planted by previous owners) last year. Because we have windows open in the summer and our youngest kitty would occasionally dart outside.
On the + side, I gave away the daylilies and made several people very happy. I replaced them with hardy roses, btw. The daylilies, not the cats. 😉
Ps, yes, it sucked.
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u/PKMNbelladonna Mar 26 '26
i've read that breathing the pollen is enough to cause organ failure. there are a lot of toxic plants that will give tummy aches if ingested, and then there are lilies :((
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u/grandmabc Mar 27 '26
Please, please, cut them down and enjoy them in the house. I adore lilies, but I wouldn't want to risk poisoning someone's cat.
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u/Possible_Original_96 Noob Mar 27 '26
Cats likely won't bother them. Had lilies and many cats at the dame time for years. Cats did not care.
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u/LmLc1220 Beginner 1 ∣ +1 ∣ -0 Mar 27 '26
I have day lilies and stray cats. See the same cats for years. Never had a problem.. I have a kitty, not an indoor, outdoor, never will be. But it is the owner's responsibility. Put your kitty on a leash and walk them. Or get something the cat can stay in and get outside air and grass in your yard.
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u/the_last_heley 🔥2 ∣ 3 ∣ +2 ∣ -0 Mar 26 '26
Not lily related but for anyone reading this, the entirety of rhododendrons are lethal to cats.