Archive for dog friendly plants

Protecting Plants from Dogs

Protecting Plants from Dogs in Portland Landscapes

NE Portland boxer dog laying in Zinnia flower bed

Some dogs like to sit outside and enjoy the flowers. But others like to eat, dig or otherwise destroy plants. Here are some tips how to have happy plants and happy dogs.

Carol had the opportunity to be interviewed by Houzz about Protecting Your Pet From Your Yard and Your Yard from your Pet.  There are more tidbits and photos in this blog. But first, a story…

Some clients of mine had two yellow lab puppies. I say puppies because they were a year old and since they are Labs (and don’t mature in their sweet heads until they are 3 years old), I call them puppies.

My clients purchased their plants for the backyard design and planted over the weekend. Monday evening, when they came home, every plant was neatly popped up out of the ground and laying in the hot summer sun. They re-purchased all of their plants and re-planted the next weekend with their dogs temporarily banished to the garage. Many dogs seem to think they are helping in this way…giving their humans something to do when they get home from work. We love dogs, we even pardon dogs who trashed $1,000 worth of plants. Be warned.  The first few months of your new landscape means you need to supervise your dogs interaction with the new plantings.  You may need temporary fences that will keep your dog away from your new plants until they are big enough to defend themselves. If your pups don’t get to have the fun, fun, fun, experience of tearing up plants then when they are older your odds are much better your dogs won’t bother them.

Temporary Fencing Ideas for Dogs

For some dogs, all we need to do is provide some guidance – in the form of a temporary fence. These types of fences are inexpensive, usually metal, and stake into the ground at short intervals. Now, if a dog (or chickens, as in the picture below!) really needed to get on the other side of that fence, it probably could. But it works most of the time – a great balance between cost and effectiveness. The purpose of this fence is to allow the plants to bulk up so that they do not get trampled or dug out. I use this solution all the time, and change the recommended amount of time based on the pup. For well-behaved, small to medium-sized dogs, I might only recommend to keep it up for a few months. For the labs in the story above, it might be three years!

temporary chicken fence on gravel path with colorful flower bed

Temporary fence keeps chickens out of planting beds. The same can be used for dogs.

Some clients have added a temporary fence because the fence wars were so bad.  The neighbor dog was alone a lot and he was crazed.  He was a 60 lb dog and would throw himself at the fence.  I found it frightening and no one wants to be the straw that would cause someone to euthanize their dog out of frustration so my clients literally built a 2nd fence about 4′ off their fence line.  It made a huge difference but obviously is not an ideal situation.

Perimeter Patrol along the Fence

For some, running the perimeter of the yard is a benign behavior, perhaps to get the zoomies out or exchange a sniff with the friendly neighbor dog.  In those cases, I will incorporate it into the design by creating a space along the fence where the dogs can sniff and run back and forth without ruining your plants.  I call that area the dog perimeter area or the dog highway.  Let them have 24″ or so next to the fence and cover it in sturdy cedar chips. Then make the planting bed several feet away from the fence. After a few years, the plants will grow up and you will not even see the perimeter path.

dog friendly path and plantings near Portland Oregon

Can you see the cedar chip path along the fence line? This pup likes to run the perimeter, so instead of planting the edge we just allowed it to be a path. After a few years the foreground plants grow in, and you can barely see the dog path. Win-win!

I once had clients whose dog passed toys back and forth to the neighbor dog through the fence. When time came to replace the fence, the clients will keep Charlie and Maggie in mind to continue the adorable exchange.

Dog Run Reinvented

A dog run is a permanent structure or area that is meant for everyday use. These are absolutely great for the quick and frequent bathroom breaks, especially if the alternative is a muddy mess. Our favorite material for covering the ground in dog runs is big playground cedar chips like NW Play Fiber or Rexius Forest Products Fiber x. It lasts for years, masks smells, is easy on dog feet and backs, and is a natural material. Alternatives for the Portland climate include artificial turf (may need to be sprayed down in the summer due to urine odor), crushed rock and pavers or flagstone with 4″ spacing.

Fencing provides potty area for dogs that separate from the garden protecting plants from dogs

This permanent fence allows the dog to have a quick access to a daily bathroom spot. When the homeowners are outside, they open the gate and the dog explores under supervision.

happy dog in cedar chip play area in Portland OregonThe cost of a dog run is higher than the other options I mentioned above, but your dog can truly be unsupervised without worry. When someone is outside, or at least home to keep an eye out, the dog can explore other parts of the yard. Here are a lot of great ideas for dog runs – any of these can have cedar chip floor instead of the artificial turf the article is suggesting.

Use the Right Plants

Urine, especially from boy dogs, can be the most common cause of plant death. Many city clients don’t expect their backyard to be the primary potty for their dogs.  These dogs go for daily walks and have play dates with other dogs at a local park year round.  It’s called dedication.  Most plants can handle a little urine but if a plant near the back door is getting “watered” regularly by your dog it’s not going to survive.  Consider how many quarts of urine your dog will deliver to one spot in your grass.  If you have a mastiff, give up and go with synthetic lawn that has an irrigation system to water the smell away.  My client with two Rhodesian Ridgebacks opted for a cedar chip play yard for her dogs rather than a muddy patchwork lawn.

Dog friendly plants Sword Fern and Hardy Geranium are protected from dogs in a planter

Sword fern (polystichum munitum and Hardy geranium (Geranium macrorrhizum) are perfect for active dogs in a dog friendly landscape.

Multiple Tricks to Protect Plants From Dogs

Regardless of how fastidious you are about walking your dog, it’s good to employ some tricks in every dog friendly backyard to have your best chance at a successful garden.  When developing the planting plan for a dog-conscious design, tough plants are necessary. Native Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum)Japanese Aralia (Fatsia japonica), and Hardy Geranium (Geranium macrorrhizum) are my easy top 3 plants for serious doggy yards. Placement in the design matters – a swath of tough Hardy Geranium in front of a Hydrangea, for example, works well for many dogs. Utilizing planters and raised beds can help too, especially for female dogs or shorter male dogs.

Be Careful with Ornamental Grass

White poodle playing in ornamental grass in garden design Portland Oregon

My pup, Roxanne, loves to roll in the grass (Carex marowii ‘Ice Dance’) and luckily does not eat it.

Be aware that if you want ornamental grasses in your yard, some dogs will eat them and promptly barf all over your rugs after eating the grass. It’s apparently really fun for dogs and cats to eat grass and then come in and barf. Luckily, Roxanne, pictured here in the Carex, does not actually eat the plant. She loves to rub her face in it and this plant, Carex marrowii ‘Ice Dance’ is tough enough to withstand her 20 lbs. of glory. Now a bigger dog, or two, you might need to provide the fencing we were talking about earlier.

So there you have it – many tips and tricks we use to design landscapes that protect your plants from your dog….with dogs happiness in mind too. For more information check out the many articles I linked here, or better yet, have a designer create a plan precisely for your situation. Contact us today!

 

 

Mud Free Dogs-Dog Friendly Landscape Designer

Options for Dog Friendly Landscaping in Portland Oregon

In my years working with my clients designing dog friendly yards, I’ve come up with many strategies to prevent my client’s dogs from bringing the outside in.  In the summer it might be a stick which you can easily throw, and in the fall; it’s a few leaves. But here in Portland, Oregon, winter and spring means mud. And mud is not so easy to stop at the door.  So is it even possible to have a mud free dog in Portland, Oregon?  The solution starts with your  experienced dog friendly landscape designer.

Mud Free Newfoundland Dogs

Cedar chips are recommended by dog friendly landscape designer

Sweet puppy Luna napping in the cedar chips

The changes we made to the landscape for Jackie and Kurt in Tigard have saved hours of grooming and large dog bathing.  Their Newfoundlands are now clean and free of mud and can come in to the family room and hang out with their humans. This was a side benefit of their Landscape Design in a Day.

Their old house comes with huge magnificent old Douglas Fir trees and lots of shade. Where there was shade, there was mud. Prior to installing our landscape design, the dogs could not come into the house at all because they were extremely muddy. I was hired to design a new entry and garden for the front yard and to provide garden coaching for the backyard. No one was talking about having mud free dogs. They could not imagine it enough to ask for it.

It’s my job to solve landscape problems for the entire family. Kurt and Jackie used my special cedar chips to create a mud free woodland “floor” in their Douglas Fir Forest. It’s beautiful even now, ten years later, the dogs are clean and poop is easy to scoop even in the winter.

cedar chips for dog play yard in Portland, Oregon

Elana and her brother play in a cedar chip yard just for them and are mud free.

Play Yard for Rhodsesian Ridge Backs

Cedar chips also worked well for another client with two large dogs, Rhodesian ridge backs. We created an enclosed area with plenty of room to rough house, so they were very happy in their new play yard.  They didn’t track mud in the house (which made their guardian and my client happy) and other spaces around the property  now have a far more aesthetically pleasing garden design. Heads up: If you have 2 large dogs who love to wrestle and chase, the cedar chips will eventually hill up in  some areas and you will need to rake it out to keep a flat play space for the pups.

Raised Beds Create Running Paths for Poodles Back Yard

round wood edging defines cedar chip path in Portland, Oregon

The short wood edging provided enough to keep two standard poodles down the right path.

Yet another family had full sized standard poodles. Poodles are smart and they have a lot of energy.   Many times, dogs (and the landscape plants) benefit from having clear paths installed to circle around and around and around. It’s a lovely way to  play chase and get lots of exercise without the hard impact on their hips and backs that concrete or pavers do.  A simple 12 inch raised bed can often be enough to point the pups in the right direction and build their running patterns. Once the plants fill in,  most pups will stay on the paths and keep their feet mud free. In this scenario, you may need to protect your plants for the first growing season with a temporary barrier like a short wire fence or use plants that are either tough enough to handle tromping or can slightly repel the dogs because of smell.

Plant Tip:  Hardy Geranium leaves (Geranium macrorrhizzum) smells like cedar if bruised.  Dogs will play near by happily but don’t walk or lie in it because of the smell.    I would never use plants with an odor that would hurt or cause discomfort to a dogs sensitive nose.

Hardy geranium and sword fern are two of my favorite dog friendly landscape plants for Portland Oregon.

Sword fern and hardy geranium in a raised bed work well for a dog friendly planting.

Creating landscape designs for dogs and their guardians is a joy and one of the perks of my profession.  Read more ‘Protecting Your Yard from Your Pet and Your Pet from Your Yard’ on Houzz for an interview with your dog friendly landscape designer Carol Lindsay written by Gwendolyn Purdom. And make an appointment for your own dog friendly landscaping!

 

Dog Friendly Shade Trees for Landscaping Small Yards

Digging Dog

On the hunt for a cool spot to lay.

Small Shade Trees for Your Dog Friendly Landscaping

It’s hot and dogs are smart.  They want shade and we can provide it or be warned, they may figure out something on their own.  A lot of dogs left to their own devices in a treeless yard will dig a hole under your nice big hydrangea or other shrub and lay in the cool earth in shade.  This may work out just fine for your pet but not your plant!

If you have a big yard you probably have at least one big tree so you have shade.  If you have a small landscape it gets trickier.

Small trees for full sun that provide shade:

Katsura Heronswood Globe suggested for dog friendly landscaping.

Katsura ‘Heronswood Globe’

 

 

Katsura H. Globe has medium sized heart shaped leaves and casts light shade. (Eventually 15′ – 20′.)  I’ve not seen it this big in the Pacific Northwest.

 

 

Lagerstromia natchez suggested for dog friendly landscaping.

Crape Myrtle ‘Natchez’

 

 

This Crape Mrytle has a thick leaf and can cast a heavy shade.  Beautiful flowers, bark and fall color make it a favorite.  (Eventually 20′ tall and wide.)  I’ve not seen it this big in the Pacific Northwest.

 

 

Strawberry tree suggested dog friendly landscaping.

Arbutus Unedo ‘Compacta’

If you select Strawberry Tree Arbutus Unendo ‘Compacta’ be sure to purchase the compact variety.  It is my top choice for heavy cooling shade for a small yard.  I’ve seen this as a 15’x15′ vase shaped tree after ten years.  Please note, too much summer water will kill this durable evergreen.

 

Hydrangea phantom at Normas suggested dog friendly landscaping.

Tree form Hydrangea Paniculata

 

This large shrub/small tree has large leaves and is great for dog shade.  This plant is in Norma B.’s landscape.  It was planted in 2013.  It can be a 15’x15′ tree but typically is kept 10’x10′ with pruning.

If you are interested in dog friendly landscaping for your yard, contact me in the Portland area.

 

 

5 plants that are Dog Pee Proof (or nearly so)

Favorite Dog Friendly Landscaping Plants for the NW

Burkwood's Osmanthus a dog friendly landscape plant

Burkwood Osmanthus (Osmanthus Burkwoodii)

Portland Landscape designer Carol Lindsay lists her 5 favorite dog friendly landscaping plants for landscapes with dogs, or gardens near city parks where there will be dogs marking their territory and yours as well.

Dog urine can damage your plants. New leaves will be more damaged than older leaves. While most boxwood leaves are damaged from dog pee, if the leaf is freshly unfurled (in the spring for instance), it is softer, and more susceptible to urine damage. If the leaf has hardened off (which happens in mid summer) there will be less damage. It is the nitrogen in urine and the acidic nature of the urine that burns the plants leaves.

1.  Burkwoods Osmanthus – Osmanthus Burkwoodii is a tough evergreen shrub that can be grown into a small tree  if desired. It takes sun or part sun, has fragrant flowers and can handle abuse, including dog pee.

2.  My personal favorite is Euonymus Japonica ‘Green Spires’, commonly known as the Japanese Spindle Tree although it should be called a shrub. Like the Osmanthus, the Japanese Spindle has a very hard leaf. The urine doesn’t permeate the leaf like it would on a softer evergreen leaf.

Japanese Spindle Tree dog friendly landscaping plant

Japanese Spindle Shrub – Green Spires

3.  Nandina, another favorite tough guy plant can be damaged by large volume dog pee but the stem with burned leaves can be removed and it will grow a new cane. There are many Nandina domestica doing well planted directly off a city sidewalk.

Sword Fern dog friendly landscaping plant.

Native Sword Fern (Polystichum Munitum)

4. The NW native sword fern can handle many different sun and soil situations. Most native plants are very tricky but our Sword Fern, Polystichum Munitum is one tough plant and can survive dog pee on its leaves.

Japanese Aralia dog friendly landscaping plant

Fatsia Japonica ‘Spiders Web’ – Japanese Aralia

5.   Fatsia Japonica – Japanese Aralia grows into a small evergreen tree or can be pruned to stay a shrub. I love to use this plant in my shady back yards with dogs. Protect it from your dogs for the first year with a temporary wire fence or put a big rock in front of it. Once established it will withstand plenty of dog pee and a fair amount of dog romping.

Tip – Hosing down a plant can lessen or eliminate the damage if done soon after the “application” of the dog pee. This is fine for your own back yard but not practical for plants along city sidewalks.

Consider volume.  A pal of mine, has a Walker Hound who is 4′ tall and drinks at least 2 gallons of water of day.  My dog Barley, weighs about 30 lbs and drinks a quart of water a day if it’s kinda hot. Is it obvious that the size of the dog and amount of urine is going to make a difference? Yes!  A plant that can handle near daily cocker spaniel pee will not do so with a large dog.

Read more about Dog Friendly Landscapes.

Carol Lindsay loves to create fast and affordable landscape designs that consider the whole family and that includes the dog of course.

carol@design-in-a-day.com

 

Dog Friendly Landscape Designer-Design in a Day

Landscaping for The Family Includes Dogs

Looking backward and forward on a 20 year career as a landscape designer, there are many benefits to my work that I love. It is satisfying to help my clients have something they want and then have it be 200 times more wonderful than they could have imagined. That makes me very happy but there is another benefit and it is usually waiting at the client’s front door to greet me.

Landscaping for Dogs & client Border Collie Freesia

Carol plays with Freesia, a side benefit to her landscape design work is playing with clients dogs.

The family dog is right there from the minute I step into a home and meet my human clients. In the same way as my human clients have needs and specifications, the family dog, depending on the breed and temperament, has needs as well. It is important to design for the whole family.

Is your dog like Charlie and Maggie…..neighbor dog buddies who pass toys through the fence (which is so adorable)!! A lab and border collie entertain each other all day long while their owners are at work. When the fence is replaced, accommodations will be made to keep the harmony happening. Regarding fences: Do you have a dog who needs to have a peep hole in the fence so he won’t bark so much or just the opposite? Is she a perimeter dog? Perimeter dogs need to patrol the fence line. It’s not the place for plants that can’t handle a little romping Rufus. Rottweilers need to survey the adjoining properties and will guard the neighbor’s home too. One Rotty I know likes to be up high so he can see who is coming or going. We designed a couple of boulders (and plantings to creep between the boulders so it looks good) that he uses to get up on his very large dog house roof. It’s not good for dogs joints to repeatedly jump down from a high place so he clambers up and down the boulders instead of jumping onto the concrete area near his dog house. When you come into the driveway you are eye to eye with him. (Mojo McAdam).   When you realize that Rottys used to guard and protect against lions,  you can understand why they need to see into the distance. You need some advance warning if a lion is coming to visit you.

We all talk about low maintenance but the changes we made to the landscape for Jackie and Kurt in Tigard, have saved hours and hours of grooming and large dog bathing. All 3 of their Newfoundlands are clean and free of mud. This was a side benefit of their Landscape Design in a Day. Their old house comes with huge magnificent old Douglas Fir trees and lots of shade. Where there was shade, there was mud. Prior to their landscape design, their dogs could not come into the house, not even the family room because they were always muddy. I was hired to design a new entry and garden and to garden coach with Jackie in her existing mature garden.  I discovered that Newfoundlands with their incredibly thick bear like fur could bring in so much mud so fast, it was stunning. It’s my job to solve landscape problems for the entire family so I slipped in some very practical design work for the back yard too. Kurt and Jackie used my special cedar chips to create a mud free woodland “floor” in their Douglas Fir forest. It’s beautiful now, the dogs are clean and poop is easy to scoop even in the winter and if you squint……well it just kind of looks like fir cones under the trees.

Jack Hofmann is pictured here with his personal water fountain. Jack is more of a one person dog so I can’t say he ever fawned over me, much as I would have liked that. He remembers me politely when I come to check on his owners garden but when the water feature was installed, he posed for me and gave me a few minutes of his attention. He knows where his new toy came from.

Landscape Design in a Day creates an echo chamber water feature or is it a dog landscaping water bowl?

Jack Hofmann and his new water bowl

Here is the story of the client who had two yellow lab puppies………I say puppies because they were a year old and since they are Labs (and don’t mature in their sweet heads ’til they are 3 years old) I call them puppies. My clients purchased their plants for the backyard design, and planted over the weekend. Monday evening, when they came home, every plant was neatly popped up out of the ground and laying in the hot summer sun. They re-purchased all their plants and re-planted the next weekend with their dogs temporarily banished to the garage………many breeds of dogs seem to think they are helping in this way……..giving their humans something to do when they get home from work. We love dogs, even dogs who trashed $1,000.00 worth of plants. This love of dogs is why the British expeditions to the North Pole in the 1800’s didn’t fare so well as the Russians. The English explorers could not view their sled dogs as a potential meal. I too would have curled up in my tent with my sled dog and shared the last morsel of food. In two weeks see my blog for stories about my clients, their dogs and the new synthetic turf.

landscaping for dogs - Barley Lindsay July 2011

Barley Lindsay cools off his belly in the early evening  on the patio

A rottweiler's habits taken into account in landscaping for dogs.

Mojo McAdam, a rottweiler may descend from dogs who guarded against lions but this is easy street.

Carol's Mercer Island clients puppy Remington Johnson habits were part of landscaping for dogs.

Cocker Spaniels are dogs who appreciate toys-photo of Remington Johnson by Missy Johnson