Try sprinkling used coffee grinds over your flower beds. Cats don't like it. They also don't like citrus. Scatter Orange, lemon, limes, grapefruit peels into your flower bed. They will compost down & feed the earthworms which is also very good for your flower beds.

To a cat tree bark is a wonderful form of kitty litter. If you rake it over and then put the planters down immediately the cats may be deterred leave the area bare and it will get scripted in. Don't think putting citrus peels down on top of the bark is the solution in this case Bathgate.

You could try cat pepper but it needs renewing every time it rains. You might also consider sonic repellers - they work over quite a wide area so are a no go if that area covers a neighbours garden as well as yours...
Some people shoot the cat with a water pistol but that depends on your seeing it doing the scratching.
Worth having a look in a garden centre of DIY as there are various products that claim to do the job too.

Hi, I have tried the citrus, garden pepper dust, 2 sonic thingy-me-jigs, water gun, all to no avail, not tried the coffee grinds but then I don't drink coffee. I love cats but do not have one at the moment, but have to put up with the two cats from next door. Why oh Why do they never do their doings in their own gardens I ask myself .
That's my moan for the day, off to get the hose pipe out now and give the garden a good watering, you never know, I might just catch a cat or two. xx

The cats crap in your garden so they don't have to live with it. They know exactly what they're doing.

Or, more likely, there is no clear ground in their garden... Our two siamese use our garden and bury everything.

Bathgate & Moon growe, you are absolutely right on both counts. I keep my little garden neat and tidy, next door's grass in 12in high, with unkempt borders, still it takes all sorts I suppose xx