Is your landscaping going to the dogs? Is your lawn riddled with “dog spots?” There’s no reason that you can’t have both dogs and attractive landscaping. But landscaping with dogs does present challenges that may require some compromises. The goal in this balancing act is to achieve an attractive, dog-friendly yard.
Effective landscaping with dogs begins with the recognition that a business-as-usual approach won’t work. If your dogs are to be allowed to run about in your yard, you’ll probably have to make adjustments to your landscaping. Landscaping with dogs primarily entails making concessions to your canine friends, as you’ll see from the strategies below. I do, however, offer one glimmer of hope that you can, instead, adjust the dogs to the landscaping. Either way, if you fail to make some sort of adjustment, then dogs will make a mess of your yard. Worse still, they’ll be continually dragging dirt into your house.
Landscaping With Dogs: Adjustments to Your Landscaping
Strategy #1: Avoid Dog Spots With Hard-scape
Dogs and lawn grass don’t mix well. For small areas, consider switching from a grassy expanse to hardscape. The advantages of hardscape go beyond solutions to landscaping with dogs, since hardscape offers a low-maintenance alternative to grass that obviates lawn care. Stone and masonry are especially useful for landscaping with dogs, because they minimize the mess dogs make through urination (dog spots), digging and plain old wear and tear.
Here are some ideas for incorporating hardscape into your yard:
- Make liberal use of crushed-stone mulch. If you grow plants in such mulch in a sunny area, select drought-tolerant plants, since stone gets hot in the summer. Don’t place the stone mulch directly up against the plants.
- Build a brick patio, a concrete patio or a flagstone patio.
Strategy #2: Smarter Lawn Care — Know Your Grass Types
But what if you reject the idea of incorporating hardscape, sticking stubbornly to your wish for a “green carpet” of grass? At the very least, consider switching to a different type of grass. Some grasses hold up better to foot traffic (and paw traffic!) than others. Among the warm-season grasses, Bermuda grass is among the toughest. If you need a cool-season grass for landscaping with dogs, try Kentucky bluegrass.
Strategy #3: Green Alternatives to Grass
But installing a tougher type of grass will solve only one lawn-care problem encountered in landscaping with dogs: namely, wear and tear on grass. It will do nothing to solve the problem of “dog spots.” Dog spots are the unsightly yellow spots on grass caused by the nitrogen and salts in dog urine.
But there is a type of “green carpet” that solves the problem of dog spots: clover. Clover lawns have many advantages over grass lawns. If you’re landscaping with dogs, you’ll especially appreciate the fact that clover doesn’t stain the way grass does after being subjected to canine urine.
Strategy #4: Emergency Lawn Care — Diluting Dog Urine
If you can’t bring yourself to renounce grass, you can still prevent dog spots by vigilance. When you see a dog urinating on the grass, rush to the garden hose. Turn it on and bring it over to the area where your dog has just urinated. Douse the area with water, thereby flushing it and diluting the harmful elements in the dog urine.
This strategy won’t be very appealing if you “have a life.” I know I wouldn’t want my day to revolve around the urinary habits of my dog! But hey, different strokes for different folks.
Strategy #5: Fences for Dog-Friendly Yards
One way to keep dogs away from the delicate plants in your yard is by building fences around them. Wood picket fences are especially attractive. Plant some perennial flowers behind a white picket fence, and you’re well on your way to creating an English country garden.
Strategy #6: Wire Cages
Place wire cages around trees and shrubs to prevent dog urine from reaching their trunks and roots and damaging them. That way, dogs can go about their business and you can relax, secure in the knowledge that Fido’s urine won’t be killing your favorite specimen. Wire cages are fairly simple to build:
Buy a roll of chicken wire, tall enough that your dogs can’t jump over it.
- Drive 4 stakes into the ground around the tree or shrub, about 2 feet away from any foliage or bark. Now measure the perimeter of the square area formed by the stakes.
- Using that measurement, cut off a length of the wire.
- Now run the length of wire from stake to stake, tying the wire to the stakes (e.g., with twist-ties).
- The result is an enclosure that will keep Fido at bay.
Note, however, that this strategy represents a severe compromise for your landscaping. Use it only as a last resort. Chicken-wire is not especially attractive. But you could dress up such a wire cage by using decorative posts for your stakes.
Strategy #7: The Path of Least Resistance to Dog-Friendly Yards
If a fence surrounds your property, do not try to grow any plants in the area immediately adjacent to the fence. Dogs are territorial, and their favorite path in a fenced-in yard will be right along the fence. Unsightly “dog paths” are the result of this predictable behavior.
Rather than fighting it, plan your yard around your dog’s predictability. Install stone walkways over existing dog paths. Now everyone will be happy: the dog still has its path, and you get to have a better looking yard. Stone walkways exude charm and are a desirable addition to your landscaping regardless of dog problems.
Landscaping With Dogs: Adjustments to Your Dogs
Finally, consider a strategy that attacks the problem at the dogs’ end of it. The following strategy can help with the problem of “dog spots”:
Strategy #8: Dog Behavior Modification
Another option is to train your dogs so as to restrict their “toilet space” to a designated area. To facilitate clean-up, make sure that designated area has a surface of dirt or gravel.
Some have suggested that a change in a dog’s diet (for instance, mixing a bit of tomato juice into dog food) may neutralize the harmful elements in dog urine before it ever has a chance to harm your grass. As far as I know, however, the evidence that this strategy works is merely anecdotal.
A Final Consideration for Dog-Friendly Yards
If the plantings in your yard possess any significant degree of diversity, there’s a good chance that you’re growing poisonous plants — without even knowing it. You’d be surprised at how many of the most common landscape plants and native volunteers contain at least some parts (leaves, berries, etc.) that are toxic. Personally, this doesn’t worry me, as I rarely feel the temptation to nibble on my plants as I stroll through my yard. However, if you have dogs, cats, small children, or an uncontrollable appetite, it behooves you to learn more about poisonous plants.
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(719) 963-6267
3335 Landmark lane Colorado Springs CO 80910
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3335 Landmark lane 80910
(719) 963-6267
(720) 221-3606