A warning about ornamental grasses

[Wbeezer]

Our dear old cat is in the vet hospital having had to have grass removed from her nasal/ palette area for the second time in a year. I’m a garden designer and replanted my garden with a mix of perennials and clumps of perennial grasses, a style that is fashionable and I love for ours natural look. What I didn’t realise was how potentially dangerous this was for the cat as these varieties are stiffer, pointier and have a sandpapery feel if you brush the leaves the wrong way. This means they can lodge if your cat eats them then is sick. After the first time I dug up the clumps she seemed most attracted to but I really regret not digging them all up. For a while we tried to keep her in and allow her out under supervision but she is old and used to free access outdoors and was unhappy being kept in. She seems to ignore ordinary soft lawn grass and goes after the fancier spikier ones.
Our local reasonably priced vet didn’t have an endoscope small enough for cats so off to the hospital, Bill likely to be £2.5k.
Probably best to avoid any grasses that are at all spiky or rough to the touch, basically any that are sold in in garden centres. I feel v guilty about the pain and discomfort my poor otherwise healthy for her age cat is going through.😢

So sorry about your cat, I hope she's home again and fully recovered very soon.

I did not know that about ornamental grasses, appreciate you sharing.

Poor cat.

Will you be specifically advising against them in all garden designs from now on to save the pain, distress and risk to any animals (cats, dogs, foxes, wildfowl, etc)? It would seem to be very important that 'wildlife friendly' design doesn't choke the wildlife as well as family pets.

If you know your pet well and know it never nibbles grass you're probably OK. The main culprit for DCat seems to be Deschamspia Caispitosa ( wavy hair grass) which is actually a native grass but a particularly decorative one. I don’t know of it tastes particularly nice or something. The vets have phoned, they got it out with great difficulty and she’s come round from the anaesthetic but they’ve shaved her neck in case her throat swells and she needs a tracheotomy. She’s 16 so a lot for her to go through.

she seems to ignore them planted at the back of borders well surrounded by other plants.

We don't have any grasses nor do my neighbours, but somehow my ginger boy has managed to have to had grass removed from his nose and soft palette 3 bloody times! We live by open countryside so I presume something that grows there is good to eat that sticks in his mouth. He's also a bit of a moron though...

@Gumbo DCat is a torture so a law unto herself. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with that too, I might be feeling a little bit less guilty. It seems to be a hard habit to break once they decide they like it. I think we might have to build a catio and curb her freedom.
I’m a bit shocked at the vet hospital costs, 10x what our local vets charged for the same procedure last time, but our vets couldn’t get to it this time. Apparently their special endoscope is very delicate and expensive.

10x the cost?! That's shocking!
I've just moved to an independent vet as they're cheaper than the one I was with previously who'd joined a big group, and bumped their prices up accordingly...

Yup our usual vet is a very affordable independent country vet practice. The specialist vet hospital reeks of private equity money. They do seem to be doing more to support her after the op, she’s had a drip and steroids and is in overnight, still hard to justify though!

Omg yes, had same issue. Ours was deschampsia also.

@Nchangeo did you remove the grass and have no further issue?

It was really odd. We also love planting. The new wave Piet style and had a garden full of deschampsia, stipa, anamenthale all sorts of grasses. Cat never ate any of it. Then suddenly one summer he’s choking on something. Surgery later. We got the remnant back after and could feel the sandpaper texture as you say. So deduced we believe was Deschampsia cespitosa goldtau. We were just about to move so did nothing. Assumed he would learn (as you say it’s also native as a straight non cultivar).

We moved house, didn’t have any in the garden. Next year he’s choking again. Surgery again.

We obviously don’t put D. cesp in our own garden anymore. We have D. flexuosa ‘Tatra Gold’ instead which is silky leave rather than barbed.

It’s been 4 years now and no other injuries when it’s obviously in a garden nearby. So I can only assume they do eventually learn.

Btw just thinking about this more because I still to this day have never seen cat eat grass. But they are a prolific hunter of mice. I wonder if the form of old deschampsia with the kind of dead nest at the bottom is a nice house for mice?

The leaves also droop round in a way that makes it go right up your nose potentially if you are a diving cat. And dry enough to snap?

When I think of barbed leaves there’s actually lots. We have other sandpaper barbed leaves like luzula Nivea, some of the stipas can be sharp. But stipas upright and taller with no nest portion, likewise luzula short and potentially nose diveable angle - however no nest. And not particularly that dry/snappy.

Completely irrelevant musing sorry 😅

But if it is accidental like this then perhaps it’s just luck and they don’t learn?! And thinking further he did reduce hunting drastically after that. He used to eat a mouse every midnight. Now maybe once a month.

I thought DCat had stopped as I wasn’t catching her doing it and wasn’t finding nibbled leaves. I was also giving her high fibre hairball “treats” in case it was that ( grass eating seems to coincide with hairball season she’s very fluffy). Sadly she seems to have forgotten the previous trauma, maybe cos she’s old.
my garden is going to look a bit sad without the grasses, I might put a few in tall pots above cat head height, but not the deschampsia.

I know DCat eats it as she sicks it up sometimes.

Oh bless you. I really dont think you need to devoid yourself of grasses.

I just went out to check for you and the D. Flexuosa ‘Tatra gold’ is completely spineless and flexible. I don’t see what could get stuck on that. It’s a stunner of a colour aswell. It’s like a chartreuse and to me a gross between a glossy stipa and a super fine sesleria in appearance. Much smaller but so beautiful. Very garden designer worthy and quite niche. Hard to find though.

I can’t see how big grass like miscanthus will cause issue, we previously had anemanthale and stipa no issue. Also have carex, sesleria and luzula currently no issue.

Also you could go grass like; I just did a whole modern style cottage-core border with irises and libertia instead of grass matrix.

Also maybe grow cat grass in pots. If she likes to eat perhaps you can redirect her?

And panicum! There’s so many gorgeous grasses!

I had no idea. Thank you for the warning and I hope your poor tortie is on the mend quickly.

Thanks @Nchangeo I’ve got some stipa, luzula and calamagrostis that she doesn’t seem to touch, bit worried she might move onto them now I’ve removed the D Caespitosa . Feeling very risk averse after that bill, that’s my greenhouse and dental work fund wiped!
I was actually thinking of doing what you suggested with grass like plants and will divide my irises and libertia in the autumn to spread them around and fill some gaps.

I’ve also got a new client I can sell on my grasses to. Recoup some of the money!

Good point. My friend volunteers with a fox charity and there are many grasses that are dangerous for them, presumably other wildlife too. At least pets will hopefully get treatment for any harm caused, foxes etc will often just be left to suffer and possibly die.

OP, I hope your cat is ok.

I’ll update everyone when I collect her tomorrow, they got the grass out and she came through the anaesthetic OK, they are monitoring her in case her throat swells.

The offending article, definitely the Dechampsia!
Cat is fine, eaten a huge bowl of food and gone to sleep it off.