Are roses toxic to cats? No. They are completely safe. But here are some things to note.
Roses are widely popular ornamental plants grown for their beautiful flowers.
If you grow these ornamental plants in your garden and also love cats, you may want to know if roses pose any harm to home-raised and stray cats.
Are Roses Harmful To Cats?
Here, you’re stuck between two worlds and want answers.
It’s normal to want to know what can or cannot pose harm to your pet. If you’re a gardener seeking to add rose plants to your garden, this article is directed at you.
Here, you’ll find information on all things relating to rose plants and cat safety.
Cats and Curiosity
Cats are known to be curious by nature. These pets will always want to their explore surroundings. This includes munching on plants. Now, problems arise when such plants are toxic.
It leads to poisoning that may end up killing your cat.
So, will your cat’s curiosity lead to its poisoning? Well, it depends on whether the plant present is toxic or not. We’ll be finding out shortly if rose plants are among toxic plants to avoid.
Will My Cats Be Poisoned With Rose?
Not at all! Roses pose no problem at all to cats. You can easily have these growing in your garden or bring in a rose bouquet without fearing for your cat’s safety.
This is a major relief for gardeners and cat lovers who can’t do without these vibrant plants.
You’ll Want to Avoid Mixed Flower Bouquets
With cats around your home, you don’t want to put them in harm’s way. There are toxic flowers that can indeed poison your cats.
Examples include lily, oleander, azalea, hyacinth, chrysanthemums, tulips, amaryllis, and daffodil.
Other poisonous flowers include gladiolus, lily of the valley, crocus, cyclamen, foxglove, iris, autumn crocus, and widow’s thrill. When one or a combination of these is included in a flower bouquet, your cat will be in danger of poisoning.
This is even more likely when your cat comes around with such a bouquet. While avoiding mixed flower bouquets, you can have one containing purely rose plants without fear of cat poisoning.
So, are there other non-poisonous plants apart from roses? There are.
Apart from roses, there are lots of other flowers considered safe around cats. These include spider plants, palms, African violets, ponytail palms, sword fern, calatheas, prayer-plants, parlor palms, areca palms, echeveria, and Christmas cactus.
Others are purple velvet plant, cast iron plant, baby rubber plant, haworthia, touch-me-not, money tree, friendship plant, tillandsia, polka dot plant, orchids, and rubber fig.
Cats Are Safe Around Roses But Not Every Other Plant
Your cats may be safe around rose flowers but are still potentially exposed to poisoning from other flower types. In our discussions, we’ve seen that certain plants have been clearly identified as toxic or poisonous to cats.
This calls for extra caution around these. Speaking of caution, you’ll need to ensure that these plants aren’t brought to your home.
Due to the long list of plants categorized as toxic to cats, it’s impractical to memorize all such plants. Note; impracticability doesn’t translate to being impossible.
The safe option is to look up any plant you wish to add to your garden. This is necessary to help determine or find out if it’s poisonous to cats or not. The internet is always available to help you in your research.
You may also want to speak with a botanist as well as with a veterinary doctor.
These professionals will offer useful advice on what to include and what not to include in your garden. Every pet lover will go the extra mile to ensure their pet’s safety.
This is a procedure you shouldn’t find boring at all.
You Can Keep Both Cat and Rose Plant
The discussion so far has made it abundantly clear that your cat can coexist with rose plants.
In other words, you can enjoy having your cat around while growing roses. However, extra caution is necessary when considering other plants with names including the word “rose” in them.
Primrose is a prime example of such a plant. Without a doubt, this plant is toxic to cats. Not only are cats poisoned by it, other pets such as dogs and horses are also affected.
Even humans are irritated by simply coming in contact with primrose leaves.
So, it’s important that that you be on the lookout and avoid generalizing plants with names containing the word “rose” in them. If you’re confused, you know what to do.
Simply contact the nearest botanist or ask a vet.
Also, the internet is always there to do some research.
How Cats Get Poisoned
Did you know cats sample a lot of plants found both indoors and outdoors?
Here, we’re simply referring to the ingestion of plants. This is why you should be worried if there are poisonous plants within your environment.
Chances are that the presence of such plants is only discovered after diagnosis reveals cat poisoning.
Under such circumstances, it’s necessary to rid your surroundings of all poisonous plants. Doing so is easy as long as you can identify them. Again, there are lots of online resources that will help in that regard.
Cats Can Survive Poisonous Plants
A cat ingesting a poisonous plant doesn’t translate to its death. A lot of times, cats have fed on poisonous plants and still survived the ordeal.
These pets may fall ill and recover with treatment.
In some cases, they still return to ingest such poisonous plants even after initial poisoning.
So, what needs to be done in such circumstances? The onus lies in you to take action. In taking action, you’ll need to have such plants excluded from your surroundings.
It doesn’t matter whether these are located in your garden or indoors. They have to go!
Save your cat the unpleasant after-effects of ingestion of poisonous plants. Responsible garden practices will keep your pets from falling ill.
How To Prevent Cats From Eating Poisonous Plants
You may be lucky enough to prevent cats from feeding on poisonous plants. However, such luck is dependent on taking certain actions such as spraying a taste-deterrent on them.
Taste-deterrent sprays taste awful to cats.
With repeated application, they come to associate such taste with certain plants. However, you’ll need to frequently reapply such sprays when their effect wanes.
Roses aren’t poisonous to plants. However, you’ll still need to be careful with other poisonous plants around. The presence of such plants is always a clear sign of danger.
Have them removed if possible.
