It’s lucky I love dogs, as around half of my clients own them. People who love gardens often love dogs too - that’s my personal theory anyway! And if you have a dog, you’re going to want to design your garden to work for you and your pooch too. So here are some tips on making your garden as dog-friendly as possible, but also looking great.
Toilet matters
Grass is a nice place for your dog to toilet. But dog urine on grass can cause ugly yellow patches. This is much worse when the ground is dry, so fortunately, in winter and autumn it’s less obvious. The ‘dog rocks’ that go into water bowls can help alleviate the problem in the summer, as can watering the grass after the dog has gone for a wee. An area of gravel somewhere in the garden for the dog to toilet on is another possibility, but gravel is hard to clean, and you might unwittingly be creating an animal toilet for visiting cats. If you are designing the garden from scratch you could put an area of lawn somewhere hidden from key sight lines, and teach the dog to use the toilet there.
Dog lovers are often also wildlife lovers and are often keen to give ‘no mow May’ a try, or create a wildflower area. Dogs are no respecters of delicate flowers and grasses however, and its almost impossible to clear dog poo from such areas. Perhaps your garden is large enough for the dog to ignore these areas, but in a small garden this can be a tricky balance. If you’re keen to attract pollinators then garden beds that provide food and shelter all year round are amazing for biodiversity. A recent study from Great Dixter found that the incredible abundance and diversity of planting of ornamental plants in the garden there is even better for pollinators than their wild meadow areas. So you if you can stock your beds with plants that flower all year round then you will be increasing that all-important biodiversity in your garden, and enjoying colour and scent all year round.
All plants are poisonous except for the ones in the kitchen!
That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but a good rule of thumb. People often ask about plants that are toxic to dogs, but the truth is that most stuff in the garden is toxic to some degree. That said, some plants are worse than others. Bulbs are generally extremely toxic to dogs, as are the leaves and flowers from them. So daffodils for example are very poisonous to dogs (and people!) Puppies tend to be a bit more interested in nibbling such plants but they tend to grow out of it. So keep an eye on them, and if they are grazing in the garden then you might want to avoid plants that are very toxic to dogs. There’s a list here:
Conversely I find that dogs love to eat grasses, as these would have been part of their diet once upon a time. Stipa in particular seems very popular, and nibbling the ends of these grasses in Spring can severely stunt the growth of the plant. So if you have a puppy you might want to avoid putting lots of ornamental grasses in the garden until they have grown out of the habit.
Secure perimeters
Probably the most important consideration for dog-friendly garden is a secure perimeter. Check for missing fence panels, holes under fences that have been dug or have appeared, and for sharp wiring that can cut dogs. I tend to use plastic covered chain link wire fences to around 1.2 metres and then hedging which very quickly disguises the wire and creates a green boundary. And I always make sure to put in CD sized holes so that hedgehogs can pass through the garden as they need to traverse miles to find the food and shelter they need. Gotta take care of the hedgehogs as well as the dogs!
The paw wash
Where clients have dogs, I always specify a mixer tap so that you can get hot water to clean the dog. This is as much for the client as the dog as it’s much nicer to clear a muddy dog in the rain with a bit of warm water! It’s usually a straightforward job for a plumber to run a hot water pipe to an existing cold water tap. And then you will need somewhere for the water to drain to - either an area of patio that falls directly to a drain or a large planting bed or a soakaway to carry water off paving.
So there you go, some tips to make sure that if you’re one of the 6 million dog owners in the UK, you can make the most of your garden to make life with your dog even more enjoyable.
Patti the cockapoo sitting happily on my spring bulbs!
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