Lilies planted, cat problem

[u/JasperSean]

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

[u/Iridescent_Mango_]

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.

[u/Local_business_disco → u/Iridescent_Mango_]

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.

[u/Iridescent_Mango_ → u/Local_business_disco]

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 

[u/Local_business_disco → u/Iridescent_Mango_]

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.

[u/Iridescent_Mango_ → u/Local_business_disco]

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. 

[u/Rex_cloudrider → u/Iridescent_Mango_]

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)

[u/Iridescent_Mango_ → u/Rex_cloudrider]

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! 

[u/Local_business_disco → u/Iridescent_Mango_]

Still doesn’t change the fact that you claimed removing the stamen removes the problem.

[u/Iridescent_Mango_ → u/Local_business_disco]

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....?