Tired of Cleaning Your Cat’s Hair All Around the House? Turns Out, Your Garden Has a Good Use for It

Having a fluffy cat as a pet is all cheerful and adorable until they shed their hair all over your home. It’s traumatic to pull out a grubby clump of hair from the carpet or your couch. But thankfully, you can use them for an interesting purpose: shooing away hungry animals that might be disturbing your plants. Writing in Better Homes & Gardens, homeowner Emily Williams shared how her mom’s remarkable advice of using “cat’s hair” helped her protect her plants from a colony of pestering rabbits.

When Williams moved into this new house, she found herself harbouring a bitter animosity towards rabbits that seemed to have invaded her brand new garden. One day, after waking up, as she walked to the garden to say hello to her plants, her jaw dropped open. These rabbits had munched away a rose bush, which was one of the first things she had planted in the backyard. The tiny pink flowers sprouting from the buds suddenly disappeared in thin air. “I woke up one day to find the bush gone, with only a few inches of stem remaining,” she described.

At first, her suspicions fell on her husband. Maybe he had accidentally pruned her roses, she wondered. But then, her curious eye detected the evidence she needed to solve this mystery. The ravaged plant displayed some “clean, diagonal cut” marks, seeing which, she was finally able to realize that the culprit was actually these rabbits. Horrified at what these cute, fluffy animals could do to her plants, she communicated her worries to her mom.

Cat fur and chili powder combo 

Coming straight from a magical apothecary, her mom’s advice changed her life, and the life of her plants: sprinkle cat fur and chili powder at the base of the plant. At first, she shrugged the unusual tip as some witchy-woo-woo. “At first, this sounded like some witchy woo-woo concoction straight out of the movie Practical Magic — but I decided it couldn't hurt to try.”

She grabbed a cat’s comb and gave a quick grooming to the pet. As per mom’s instruction, the fallen hairs were collected and scattered around the plants in her garden. “I sprinkled the cat hair and spice in a circle around the roses, hoping the whole time that none of my neighbors were watching. I did this every few days for about 10 days, and shockingly, it appears to be working,” Williams recalled. It might sound like a queasy witchcraft ritual carried out to evoke storms or kill somebody or protect somebody, this “cat hair” trick is actually rooted in the deep underbelly of science.

Science behind the 'cat hair' trick

As Compost Magazine explains, pet hair, including cat hair, is a natural pest deterrent and makes up a healthy composting material, given its rich nutritional composition. Both cat hair and human hair are rich sources of magnesium and nitrogen, the two minerals plants need the most to grow and thrive. Adding to plant nutrition, these hairs also offer a host of other benefits, such as insulating and stabilizing the soil as well as water retention, which is helpful in times of drought. “Hair is a great ingredient for well-managed compost piles,” some scientists noted in a study published in Compost Science & Utilization.

Meanwhile, Williams no longer sees bite marks on her rose bushes, which means the unlikely combo suggested by her mom was working its magic by taming the attackers. With this hairy protection, the plants are no longer threatened by predators like rabbits, squirrels, and rodents.