Dog and garden owners often wonder – how to enjoy a beautiful and well-kept environment when a dog lives with them? Is this even possible? We will tell you how to protect your garden from the dog and how to create a garden that is perfect for the dog.
How to enjoy a beautiful and well-kept garden with a dog?
You can look at it in two ways. First of all, you can try to teach your dog to respect your garden and the work that you do to maintain it, but this is more a field for dog trainers and charmers. The second option is to plan and adapt your garden in such a way that it also takes your pet’s needs into account.
How do you do this?
First of all, you should arrange it in such a way that your dog can move around freely without damaging the plants.
When adapting the garden to your dog’s needs, you should keep a proportion between the size of the dog and the garden – the bigger the dog, the more space it needs. However, it is sometimes the case that a small garden contains a large dog. In such cases, you will need a separate area in the garden just for the dog, preferably the area where it spends most of its time.
Keep an eye on your dog’s habits and try to reduce its destructive behaviour. If your dog likes to run under the fence and notoriously tramples everything that can grow out of the ground there, you don’t have to fight with windmills, you have to compromise and in this case, it’s best to create a 60cm wide strip along the fence, hardening it with gravel, sand or bark, which can be separated from the rest of the garden with taller and denser plants.
Dog vs garden – how to scare a dog away from plants?
By planting slightly older plants, mainly trees and shrubs, you can avoid drastic withering caused by dog urine – young plants and all conifers are much more sensitive than their older counterparts. However, if you want to grow conifers in your garden too, you can follow these tips.
It is a good idea to plant deciduous shrubs around sensitive plants or fence them off with a fence – this will act as a physical barrier. Delicate flowers or conifers can also be grown in containers or surrounded by plants that have an odour that repels pets such as Coleus Canina or Artemisia abrotanum.
The use of plants with dense and tough stems (e.g. common heather) or that have thorns and thorns (barberry, hawthorn, roses) can be effective in deterring a dog from the areas where they grow, but this in my opinion is a last resort.
In addition to such obstacles, it is a good idea to introduce a difference in terrain using retaining walls or palisades and creating raised beds. This will create a path that the dog can walk along and an area that is inaccessible to him.
A dog and a nice lawn – is this even possible?
Unsightly yellow stains on the lawn – probably every dog owner has experienced them. Dog urine, in small concentrations, acts as a fertiliser – thanks to the nitrogen bound in urea.
Sometimes, therefore, the grass grows lushly and is much taller where the dog has finished his business than in other parts of the lawn, but in the middle of this lush patch the lawn is completely burnt out – the nitrogen concentration was too high and simply destroyed that part of the lawn. In drastic cases, this can even result in the lawn being partially replaced along with several centimetres of the substrate.
In addition to teaching your dog to relieve itself outside of the garden or in a designated area, there is a second option – the use of an automatic sprinkler system works well here as the water dissolves urea so that it has less of an effect on the plants.
8 rules for creating a garden for your dog!
Finally, here are some tricks and simple tips to make it easier for your dog to coexist in your garden:
- It’s worth setting aside one shrub or tree to die, even if it dies completely don’t dig it out of the ground – if you let your dog water one chosen plant – he’ll be happiest in the world!
- In a large garden, it’s a good idea to place larger stones among the plants. Your dog will be more likely to mark a stone than a plant.
- When you’re planting new plants, especially bulbs that are due to bloom in spring, don’t do it in front of your dog’s curious gaze – I guarantee that as soon as the door to the house closes behind you, your dog will immediately start searching and dig up the whole bed.
- When creating a lawn, choose a grass mix that is resistant to trampling.
- If your dog likes to scratch the bark, place a net around tree trunks.
- Play with your dog in his spare time and go for long walks outside the garden – your dog is not destroying plants maliciously, he is doing it because he wants to get your attention, he is bored or simply doesn’t know he is doing something wrong.
- When spraying plants, do not keep your dog in the garden because it can be poisonous to him.
- Do not use plants with poisonous fruit (such as common yew)-some dogs, especially puppies, may eat such fruit which is harmful to them.
