Pet Friendly Houseplants
One of the most frequent questions asked in the shop is what houseplants are safe for my cats or dogs? It’s a great question and one we have some familiarity with considering we have three cats roaming our shop. Our first suggestion is to try and keep plants out of reach of animals. But cats are wily and can climb anything if they have reason. Bobbing leaves and bouncing stems are often irresistible as a play toy, bringing minutes of entertainment in the mangling of leaf tips.
Floor plants are also accessible to cats and dogs and are harder to keep out of reach. So, for those plants you can’t keep out of reach, we have some suggestions for safe plants to try, all of them easy and gorgeous.
First off, let’s consider why they’re eating them in the first place. Cats and dogs have ancestry that roots them in the outdoors, where plants were available to serve as a natural pharmacy to heal aching stomachs, help with ‘processing’ hairballs, or provide them with additional nutrition. So naturally, when confined to indoors, these instincts are still intact, and our houseplants become their means of satisfying their needs.
A quick solution for cats, and we’ve heard of dogs liking it too, is to provide cat grass for them to graze on. Fortunately, cat grass is incredibly quick and easy to grow. Seeds can just be spread on the top of any kind of pot filled with soil, watered and within a few days, grass blades appear, ready to be eaten! Keeping a constant pot in rotation ensures there is always something green coming on.
The plants listed here are recognized by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) as being non-toxic to cats and dogs. We also have a new section of the shop dedicated to pet friendly plants, so come by and we’ll help you pick the best one for your spot.
Cat grass
African violets
Spider plants
Venus fly traps
Calatheas
Polka dot plants
Peperomias
Ponytail palm
Velvet plant or purple passion
Hoyas
Parlor Palm
Prayer Plants
Bird’s Nest Ferns
Orchids
Pileas
Money Trees
Air Plants
