cats and houseplants

A Nonsymbiotic Relationship

Cats like houseplants, but houseplants don’t particularly like cats. Or, at least, cats don’t do houseplants any good.

Take my ponytail palm, for example. My cat is an outdoor cat, but I know if she came indoors, what a grand time she’d have jabbing her claws playfully at the ends of the ponytail palm’s wispy leaves. She’d do the same for my orchid’s flower stalk, now weighed down with a row of delicate blooms. Either plant would emerge from such play worn and frayed.

There’s not much you can do once a plant catches your cat’s fancy, except Read more