Plants to Use and Plants to Avoid for a Cat Garden

This is another gardening post. Of late, I hope my readers enjoy gardening, or at least hearing about my experiences, because that seems to be all I have been writing about! What can I say? I like being outdoors. When you live in town, you are kind of limited to your yard or the park, and I don't know about you, but the seats on the swing set are much smaller now than they used to be!

As my rock garden has started to progress (I pulled/killed the weeds, turned the soil and dumped the rocks in a pile tonight), I have been looking up ideas for plants to add. Particularly, plants that my cats will enjoy. While there is the obvious - cat grass (which is really oats) and can nip (or cat mint), I have discovered a few more that appear popular. Alyssium, Heather and Creeping Rosemary have all been suggested, via About.com. Luckily, most are also pretty hardy, so they should grow well in the boggy, shaded corner I'm converting.

While doing some investigation, I thought it might be wise to also check out the toxic plants before I head to the nursery for my purchases. There is a great photo gallery here that shows some common, toxic plants. I guess I'll be avoiding ivy, which was originally in my 'rock garden' plan to cover the fence. I would prefer to avoid dealing with my pets' upset tummies, comas or death!