For a smile as wide as a country sunrise

Hi again everyone! Welcome to part 2 of our look at safe and unsafe plants for your cat. In part 1 I mentioned keeping them “out of reach” of your pets, but that can mean different things for different cats. The best thing is to concentrate on plants that are safe for your pet, or no plants at all. But, if you’re like me, plants are essential for my apartment. Our winters are very long and it’s nice to have some greenery around to help out a bit.

Plus, plants will actually help to clean the air in your home, some are better than others, but all will work. They add aesthetic beauty to any home, plus, they also help to relieve tension and stress, which ultimately leads to better physical and mental health. So, it is possible to have both pets and plants. For myself, I just got rid of my old plants and started fresh with the right plants. Some of those are listed here to help guide you in the right direction.

African violets are a very popular plant that has a second benefit of providing flowers for most of the year. They don’t require a lot of light or attention, a very easy to grow plant. And they come in a huge variety of flowers and colors to choose from. Plus, they are inexpensive to buy. Orchids are another good choice, though they are more expensive, but they are also very easy to grow and come in so many colors.

I recently added a banana tree to my collection of plants, though it is one that generally requires a lot of space, which I don’t have, but I thought it would be an interesting project to see if I could stunt it’s growth a bit and end up with a mini banana tree. It’s already a smaller variety anyway, which grows to about 7 feet (approx. 2 meters) tall.

One that I really enjoy, but are hard to get around here, is the calathea plant. These plants are very easy to grow and have beautiful variegated leaves, the main reason that people purchase these. The leaves come in many different patterns and colors depending on the variety.

And something I didn’t know until my more recent addition, some at least have beautiful flowers, like mine. They are well hidden among the leaves so hard to see, but these ones have a very beautiful, delicate scent which I really enjoy.

And if your cat is an indoor feline like Muffin, it is always a good idea to provide some greens for them to eat. One safe plant is oat grass which Muffin devours quite readily on a daily basis. I never have to worry about it growing too tall, but it will only live for so long, therefore I always start a new pot of the oat grass as soon as I notice hers starting to produce any browning of the grass. It grows fast, which is perfect since Muffin eats it equally fast, and is easy to grow. You should be able to find it at any pet store.

Other plants that are safe for your cat are the following:
Areca Palm
Boston fern
Pony tail plant
Friendship plant
Polka dot plant
Peperomia
Mosaic
Bromeliad
Purple waffle plant
Gloxinia
All of these are supposed to be easy to grow. Some have flowers and some have beautifully colored leaves. And that is only a partial list, there are more to choose from. Well, I hope you have enjoyed this little bit of information to help keep our pets safe at all times. Well, that’s it for this cats and plants post, please stay safe, have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin. (who heartily approves of this post)😸😻
© 2020 Steve McLeod.

Good morning everyone! It’s another chilly morning, but still, it could be worse. It’s a good time to sit back and dream of those nice warm summer days ahead. I know many of you already have that, but for us northerners it is still just a dream. I couldn’t believe it yesterday when I looked out the window and saw two herring gulls on the feeder…plus a ring-billed gull! It was definitely a little crowded out there and it was kind of unusual to see the 2 different gulls on there together. Now, they don’t generally fight too much, but it is rather crowded just with 2 herring gulls. I just wish I could have gotten a pic of that. But Rickie, the ring-billed gull is just not brave enough to let me go out there and take a pic of him. Oh well, one of these days I hope to get him, even just one real nice pic would be good. And even though the weather is still cold, the robins were sitting in the trees singing away so nicely. I love listening to them. Not sure what they are finding to eat these days, the ground is certainly frozen solid enough still.
But those robins don’t need much to keep them going, and now, a couple pics of the same bird that I find very beautiful indeed…

The cedar waxwing coming in to enjoy one of their favorite snacks, the petals of the apple blossoms. It will be a while yet before there are any apple blossoms this year.
And a couple more eyeing those delicious petals. There was about 30 of these cedar waxwings out in the apple tree eating petals one day last year. And when they left, there were no petals left!
I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend, stay safe, stay home and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
© 2020 Steve McLeod.