Cats and Plants

This was once a lovely carnation plant.  It had colourful flowers and everything.  Now it's just a half-chewed stub.  I don't even know if it's still alive.  Tubbs really, really took a liking to this plant.  I underestimated how high she can jump when she really wants something; I made the mistake of leaving my poor defenseless plant on a window sill with no chair underneath it.  I guess she jumped from the floor, something she hasn't done in at least a year. (Did I mention she's 11 and over 20 pounds?)  She chewed the heck out of my carnation, flowers and all. 

Exhibit B:

I bought Mike some roses on Friday.  Normally when we have flowers in the house we can leave them on the dining room table and the cats leave them alone.  Well, there's something about these roses in particular that makes both cats do bad things.  First, Tubbs jumped on the table to have a chew.  Tubbs NEVER jumps on the table.  So Mike moved them to on top of the TV.  Tubbs could never jump up that high.  But Buddy can.  In the wee hours of Sunday morning, I hear a muffled crash and discover Buddy has knocked the flowers, vase full of water and all, from the TV.  Fortunately nothing was broken or damaged, but we had lots of water to clean up.  The roses survived .. but now we keep them in the storage closet when we're not home.  What a cruel fate for such pretty roses.  What possesses cats to risk life and limb for ... a flower?