Garden Blog - Top Tropicals
Date: 14 Sep 2026
Daily Cat Lesson: Turn Your Screened Patio Into a Catio
🐾 Daily Cat Lesson: Turn Your Screened Patio Into a Catio 🐈🌿
A screened patio can give indoor cats the best of both worlds: fresh air, sunshine, birds, frogs, plants and all those fascinating outdoor smells and sounds, without roaming outside.
But there's one important catch:
A determined cat can claw, push or eventually tear through screening. Our simple solution was to add wire mesh over the regular screen, creating a second, much stronger barrier.
Sturdy welded wire or hardware mesh is ideal. We've also used chicken wire as an extra barrier, and it has protected our screened catio successfully for years.
Add wire mesh for cats.
Then add shelves, climbing spots, beds, shade and fresh water.
Suddenly your ordinary screened patio becomes Cat TV in IMAX: birds, frogs, bright foliage, water sounds - and new programming every day!
🐈📸 Top Tropicals rescued cats James Coconuts, Timo and Cash enjoying the outdoors on their catio at PeopleCats.Garden.
🐈 Stay with us for your Daily Dose of Cat! #DailyCatLesson #PeopleCats
🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals
A screened patio can give indoor cats the best of both worlds: fresh air, sunshine, birds, frogs, plants and all those fascinating outdoor smells and sounds, without roaming outside.
But there's one important catch:
🐾 Regular patio screen isn't cat-proof.
A determined cat can claw, push or eventually tear through screening. Our simple solution was to add wire mesh over the regular screen, creating a second, much stronger barrier.
Sturdy welded wire or hardware mesh is ideal. We've also used chicken wire as an extra barrier, and it has protected our screened catio successfully for years.
🐾 Keep the regular screen for bugs!
Add wire mesh for cats.
Then add shelves, climbing spots, beds, shade and fresh water.
Suddenly your ordinary screened patio becomes Cat TV in IMAX: birds, frogs, bright foliage, water sounds - and new programming every day!
🐈📸 Top Tropicals rescued cats James Coconuts, Timo and Cash enjoying the outdoors on their catio at PeopleCats.Garden.
🐈 Stay with us for your Daily Dose of Cat! #DailyCatLesson #PeopleCats
🟢 Join 👉 TopTropicals