Dog resistant plants.....

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I didn’t want to hijack a thread in Club House & I thought it might be worth posting here :)

Has anyone any tips for creating a dog resistant but attractive garden? I’ve been in my current house for 4 years, when I moved in it had nice flower borders etc and I will admit I have let them grow over appallingly due to lack of time. Add to that 4 greyhounds/lurchers who like digging holes in the back lawn.... you get the idea!

But actually I also do really like gardening, even if I never seem to have the time, so I’ve decided to try and improve the garden a bit this year.

I’ve thought of berberis as being nice and spiky, has anyone got any other suggestions for tough dog resistant plants please?
 
we have a raised bed with sleepers on one side. on the other side is a normal bed on the ground which has only a few plants still alive! they can still jump into the raised bed but it isn't as appealing! I similarly never get around to gardening, I did think I would put a net around the raised bed if I particularly wanted to make sure it was left alone! we have a massive raspberry bush which they won't dig up but my collie will steal the raspberries!!!
 
Raised beds with a black mesh around the outside, isn’t obvious and easy to see the plants through it but the dogs can’t get at the plants. Before we put that up I had a Verbena turn up in my living room one day
 
Abi90 said:
Raised beds with a black mesh around the outside, isn’t obvious and easy to see the plants through it but the dogs can’t get at the plants. Before we put that up I had a Verbena turn up in my living room one day
Click to expand...

Sorry Abi90 but that made me laugh out loud :D

I still remember when I was about 19 years old (which was a very long time ago!) my little whippet puppy carefully digging up all the plants in a half-oak-barrel tub and curling up asleep in it.... :)
 
We have a potentilla in the dog yard which against all odds has survived zooming lurchers and foster pups' excavations for several years now. No idea if it is a particularly hardy one or they are all equally resilient though. It gives us a mass of flowers every year. And the cotoneaster and passion flower vine covering the walls have been immune to dog pee so far.
 
Watch where they go in the garden and make dog paths in the borders (yes, really). If you have particularly precious or delicate plants then use thin steel rebar bent around and then the legs turned down as plant supports/guards - all smooth edges and the rust/weather well and blend in completely. Grasses do well as do shorter/native species - I manage a swathe of miniature narcissi and tulips right in the middle of the dog meadow!
 
I don't really struggle to keep my garden nice, I have some barriers to stop them climbing into the beds where the plants are low or thin. The barriers are allowing the plants to mature which stops the hounds anyway.

When I'm out in the garden, I put their outdoor beds out and they crash to sunbathe after a mad moment.
 
Thanks all, I’m really encouraged by this - I’m envisaging a nice garden again instead of a boring rectangle of rather trashed lawn :)
 
We gave up on the lawn I am afraid. We divided the garden into two sections, the dog yard paved with slabs which can be disinfected and drains well, with a few ornamental climbers on the walls and high tubs with flowers, used by the dogs all the year round, and a grassy section with shrubs where the dogs can go when the ground is dry enough. it means they never track mud into the house and they can enjoy a dry clean section for part of the year as well.
 
We have a tiny garden and when we had just the one dog we tried to keep going with the grass and re-seeding etc.
Once we got the second dog it just turned in to a mud pit even after attempts at keeping the grass.
We decided to get it paved so the dogs and house weren't covered in mud, but I wanted some plants so there was some colour and not so boring.
I now have a few pots hanging off the fence with an assortment of small plants. I also have three decent sized pots with roses in them. The plants on the fence are safe and the dogs leave them alone. However my roses kept getting chewed, these are now protected by a puppy pen attached to the fence. I can still see them well and get to them easily with the puppy pen up.
 
I put the thread in Club House and there have been some really helpful suggestions, so thanks all for those. Lev, you should try gardening with the worlds most helpful jack russell!! Whenever we are trying to do any actual gardening he will steal anything if you put it down, dig holes, which would be really helpful if he dug them where we want them and not in the middle of the lawn and general be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That combined with a springer who sits almost in the pond on frog watch make for an entertaining afternoon :) Plants wise, aside from getting some summer colour sorted, our borders stand up to all 3 dogs wandering about on them quite well. They are quite deep and curved, barked over the top with climbers up all the fences and currently aquilegia,poppies, hardy fuschias, acers and assorted conifers in the bark. The dogs wander in between them mostly, we get the odd trampled plant but they do often recover. We have a lawn in the middle with gravelled edges between it and the borders, gawd knows how the lawn stays so green and lush but it does, mown at least weekly with edges tidied it manages to cope with the dogs weeing, pooping and charging around on it. If I had any idea how to put pics on here I would happily offer you a couple to look at but I wouldnt know how to start!!
 
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