Dogs & Gardens

[moppett]

I am totally not green fingered at all but my new project is to make the garden look nice. The grass always gets so boggy and I have a suspicion that its been really badly laid and there is no drainage. So I could just relay the lawn and see how that goes. But has anyone done anything different with their gardens? Stones? Gravel? Ideas please!

 

[Bellasophia]

I've had medium sized dogs for the last 25 years in italy..the water is metered and costly.We found keeping a lawn difficult with two females who burned the lawn,and two children with bikes etc..in the end we used pink flagstone,set on a slight slope to allow drainage.We put three drain holes at the border so we could hose away any wees to an area below(planted with bushes to recycle the water).
...around the borders we build raised walls to create planting beds for robust shrubs and climbing plants...we have flowering jasmine,climbing roses,honeysuckle,wisteria etc
the shrubs are great with dogs as they withstand a lot of rough and tumble,yet are mainly evergreen and look good year round.After a year the dogs leave the plants alone and the garden is really low maintenance.
I've been sowing annuals in between the bushes,like zinnia,which give an explosion of colour in the summer...they are planted in between a row of lavender bushes ,which remain all winter...imagine the perfume and colour,it's an easy planting idea with dogs in mind.
all in all it works well with my dogs,although you do have to tell them to "leave the plants "when they are pups, and have a chew toy ready when they are changing teeth.
in UK I found roses grew very well,and most evergreen bushes...hollY ,azaleas,euonymus(look at variegated varieties). Often with a few repeated plants the borders can look spectacular and don't have to cost the earth...I also split my bushes after a couple of years and have filled out the garden economically.

 

[ljohnsonsj]

My dad has never been into gardening, but we have astro-turf now and it is incredible!