The Dog Yard - is beautification possible?

Hi folks! I'm hoping to hear from anyone who has tried (and succeeded OR failed) beautifying a fenced-in area where their dogs rule the ground.

I have a large chainlinked yard which the (2) dogs can access from a ramp connected to our screened-in porch. Outside of the fence, I'm working on lovely perennial borders and such. But the beauty stops at the fence.

We don't use the yard ourselves, it really just belongs to the dogs. But, it's ugly! I'd like to plant some Russian Sage and Silver Mullein around the inside of the fence, but of course they've created a packed-dirt track most places.

It's sandy-to-OK soil, in mostly full sun, with patches of sad not-grass throughout. The dogs aren't necessarily *bad* to plants, it's just that they've never had them in their yard. Any ideas? Please help!

I gave up on having many plants in the dog's yard. I have Clematis growing on the fence along the driveway, and peonies against the house that they haven't mangled too badly yet. There is also a narrow area between the sidewalk that goes to the door and the house where I have some columbines and perennial phlox. They do get run through on occasion, but manage to stay upright for the most part. Hope this helps.
Deb

What about a raised bed around the perimeter of the fence? A few red and yellow twig 'dogwoods' might be good too (not to mention humorous) :-)

I know they are not the plants you had in mind, but you might want to start out with more aggressive, spready, harder to kill things that are cheaper and easier to find to see how the dogs do and if they are willing to stay out of those areas. You should be safe with shrubby items that can easily be found at Walmart or Lowe's for $10 or less. Other choices might be Liriope, Ajuga, lamb's ears, etc. This would give you and the dogs a chance to try it out without going broke.

Thanks Deb! I've got some clematis that should come up better this year to help cover the chainlink, so that should help. I was thinking I might try some columbine in "trial clumps," away from their packed down track. I guess columbine is a bit tougher than it looks, at least from the second year on...

RikerBear, I think a raised bed is a really good idea. I wonder how expensive that would be, to create the "walls" for it -- I guess wood planks would be the most reasonable option? I really like that idea!

Badseed, you're probably right about the aggressive spready option. I wonder if creeping time is tough enough...I could do a trial clump of that. Lamb's ears are a great idea.

Really appreciate everyone's thoughts -- thank you! : )

I have a Great Dane and a Pitbull/Boxer mix who are mostly inside dogs but do get to go out in the backyard when we are home. My yard goes from partial shade, to full shade, to full sun as you round the side of the house into my side yard. Here is what I did-

Basically the dogs get the middle of the yard. I have a sidewalk from the gate on the north side all the way to the back of the yard where my detached garage is. I have a long perennial bed from the sidewalk to the fence (about 4 feet wide and 100 feet long). I also made a corner, triangle shaped bed that is pretty decent sized and a smaller bed up against the garage on the other side of the door. Going around to the south side of the yard I have 2 big live oaks so I made a curvy edge with big rocks and planted a shade garden on the other side of the big rocks right up to the fence (wrought iron). Then I planted my full sun side area.

How do I keep them out? Well after much debate and a very expensive estimate from the people at Invisible Fence, I decided a DIY kit was my best bet. It took me about two full weeks to train the dogs but now they run in the yard and stop right at the place where the wire is burried. Since I essentially planted the perimeter of my yard, the wire just runs in a big circle around the yard to fence off my planted areas from them. We had a break in the wire last weekend and for 2 days we had to let the dogs out without the fence being on. They still would run right up to the edge of my beds and then turn and go back the other way. For big guys, the can turn on a dime, even at a full run! :)

I hope that makes sense! I will post some pictures if you would like to see it. BTW- in the area on the north side of my house it's real shady and wet so I decided I would just let them have it. I planted a few varigated privits up against the house and some lirope on a small strip between the house and the sidewalk I mentioned. The other big dirt area is planted with vinca and asian jasmine so they can stomp all over it and not kill it. I just put some heavy duty wire fencing around and on top of it to keep them from digging (still need to do that on my lirope!) until it's established.

Jamie

Planks would work, but my favorite is cement cinder blocks. I've built several raised beds from them, with the thought that as I age and bending gets harder I can simply add additional layers of blocks to raise them up higher....less bending, less pain, continued gardening. :-)
Good luck with whatever you decide.

Marc

The wire around the perimters is a really interesting idea, Jamie -- how did you train the dogs to avoid it? And how do you anchor the wire? The wire fencing on top of plants hadn't occurred to me, but that makes perfect sense -- the plants just grow through it, but the dogs can't destroy it, right?

Marc, this will sound really dumb... but do you place your cinderblocks with the holes facing up, and plant in there, or do you place them away from the fence a bit and then fill soil in between the fence and the cinder blocks?

Thanks again, really appreciate the ideas!!

The wire gets buried- only about 2 inches down though. The system comes with a training video, manual and flags. Basically you set the wire where you want it and fine tune it by adjusting the receiver (level from 1-10 and it increases and decreases the "warning" zone). Then you take the collars and walk around the yard listening for the collar to beep. When you have it all where you want it, you bury the wire. Then you set the flags around where the wire is. This gives the dog a visible boundry. The collars have a training mode where it just beeps (no shock) and goes all the way up to a 4th level for big and/or hard to train dogs. For instance, my Dane is very sensitive and minds well so I have him on the 1st level. But my smaller mutt is a holy terror so he is on level 4. Anyway, you have to walk them around the perimeter on a leash and show them the boundry. When they get close and it beeps at them, you pull them back into the safe zone and praise them. In the non-training mode, it will give them a warning beep and if they keep going it will give them a correction zap. I don't know a good word to use, but it isn't really a shock. My husband and I both let it zap us just to see what it was like. It feels like if someone has static electricity and touches you and you get that little jolt that startles you but doesn't hurt at all. It just freaks them out and is unpleasant, but not painful. It is very important to follow the training manual to a T. They have GOT to associate the correction with the boundry. Apollo (my Dane) ran to the backdoor the first time it zapped him and I had to make him come back out in the yard and show him it was safe. You don't want them to just lay down in the middle of the yard and not move b/c they don't understand. Over the training period, you gradually remove the flags until they're gone.

As for the wire over the plants, yep. That's what I do. After lirope is established they can't hurt it, but while the dirt is soft from transplanting they will dig up the plants. So I keep the wire down until the plants are established and then pull it off.

If you go to the Petsmart or Petco site, or even Invisible Fence, you can read up on how these systems work. I am SO glad I did it or I would not be able to have anything in my backyard.

Would you consider espalliering a woody plantson the fence?

Quince could be trained in a fan shape. There's a quince cultivar that has twisted branches like the hazel featured in today's DG newsletter (and twisty willows, etc.)

Or one of those dwarf, pest/disease resistant apple trees like 'Liberty' could be trained with a main trunk and 2 or 3 side branches parallel to the ground like candalabras - if you do more than one, and if the branch tips of two "trees" meet, their cellular tissue will fuse into a single plant.

Evergreens could be treated the same way, or you could take fastigate cultivars that are genetically predisposed to be narrow but "tall" (trained to 6' or so) like Ilex 'Sky Pencil' - plant in a group of 3 for a "grove" effect to contrast with other espalliered plants. I don't know about the hardiness of Buxus 'Graham Blandy' or Taxus 'Bean Pole' in your area, but there may be others.

Other fastigate plants include apple trees and a barberry.

A "grove" of barberry 'Helmond's Fire' with red-purple leaves would splendidly set off the crimson of a clematis like C. 'Niobe' with perhaps a hardy rose in white or lighter hue of Niobe's color or...go pale apricot with Rosa 'Felicite Feligonde'? and plant a blue/purple clematis, instead, like C. Etoile de Violette or C. Polish Spirit...(spelling?)

The best, uptodate list of hardy roses for colder climates I know of is in the book, Passionate Gardening, by Lauren Springer and Rob Proctor).

Leave room for moonflowers and morning glories.

If you plant these woodies in a raised bed or container, the volume of dirt for the roots would need to be large enough that the plant could overwinter. I think you would not have to worry too much about the quince in this respect, but any of the others whose hardiness isn't one or more zones more cold-tolerant than your zone might need special consideration in this respect, or should be planted in the ground with some kind of guard in front.

Thanks so much, bluespiral -- that's a lot of great info, and I really appreciate the plant specifics. I really like the look of espaliered trees, but I hadn't thought of it as working here -- might be interesting to try! I do have some climbing roses in front of the "street side" of the chainlink fence (Cadenza, r. glauca, & Dortmund) and I'm hoping they'll fill in a bit more this season. Everything takes so long! But that's part of the fun I guess.

Thanks again,
Mary