Several years ago, after closing on our new house, I looked at my garden and decided it needed a dog. Not a tidy little dog – we already had a perfectly fine miniature schnauzer, not to mention two cats – but a nice big lummox of a dog: a German shepherd. I spent a jolly Saturday morning with my gardening/English bulldog-breeding friend Hines Poth visiting Heidelberg German Shepherds, a kennel up in Spring, and ultimately picked out an eight-month-old bitch, Bianka.
If a dog is man’s best friend, then what can you say about one that chews off all the sprinkler heads, potties on the newly planted begonias and chases a squirrel right through the dwarf Burford holly, snapping the brittle stocks? Yes, Bianka presented some gardening challenges.
Then, two years later, I watched as her five just-weaned puppies – so adorable in their cozy cardboard box in the kitchen – happily defiled my flower beds. They headed first for the aspidistra, each pup bounding into the jungle, snarling and ripping the glossy leaves in a fury of puppy derring-do. In no time they had flattened a 100-square-foot area. They chewed clean through the trunk of a newly planted crape myrtle, couldn’t abide the split-leaf philodendron (and so destroyed it) and pulled the hempy outside leaves off the musa banana. Then they conked out for a long nap on the cool iridescent leaves of the peacock ginger.
From that litter, I kept back the most charismatic puppy, Zelda, and gave her to my son Sam. But my puppy-rearing days were over – both mother and daughter were spayed within the year – and I began to put my garden back together. What took mere hours to destroy required more than a year to repair. The delay, though frustrating, gave me an opportunity to figure out a few things. Here is what I learned.
Don’t try to break the dog’s natural habits. Ultimately, success is possible by observing your dog’s natural instincts and working around – not against – them. By nature a guarding dog, German shepherds make a habit of walking the fence line often. (That would not be true of all dogs; our miniature schnauzer rarely went off the flagstone paths, as he didn’t like to get his feet wet.) So don’t plant shrubs and perennials snug up against the fence. If you want shrubs or perennials there, place them a few feet out and leave room for the dog’s natural trail behind. Once the shrubs or perennials fill out, you’ll never be able to tell.
Plant sturdy plants. Forget about planting out a bed of four-inch petunias or raising almost anything from seed. You must purchase plants that can hold their own with the dogs, one gallon at least for dogs like mine. When I do plant something smaller or wispier – a knee-high variegated datura, for example, or the pink Turk’s cap I put in the back garden – I use a tomato cage over the plant for a few months until it bulks up. Staking works, too.
Use landscape boulders and large potted plants to divert traffic. These create “safe zones” by making it inconvenient for the dog to pass through. Large heavy statuary might work, too, depending upon the size of your dog and your tolerance for risk. When I first planted my Milky Way aspidistra, I put clay pots of caladiums among the plants. I eventually removed the pots one by one as the aspidistra filled in. By the time I removed the last pot, the dogs had lost the habit of walking through that bed.
Pave the pathway in and out of your home. Dogs are going to track dirt and debris into the house. By paving a pathway between house and garden, however, there’s at least a chance that some of the grit on their feet will brush off. Consider brick, patterned concrete, flagstone, wood decking or crushed stone.
Avoid yummy organic fertilizer. One year I bought two 40-pound bags of a highly touted organic fertilizer from Southwest Fertilizer. The pellets (think: rabbit food) contained alfalfa, soybean meal, fish meal and molasses. It smelled delicious! The dogs thought so, too. No sooner had I spread it lovingly when both the shepherds and schnauzer waded into the beds to begin grazing. For the next week, until the pellets finally dissolved into the ground, the dogs would return to the backdoor, their muzzles covered in telltale green crumbs.
Select plants that are safe for dogs. I once wrote an article about an emergency veterinarian, and he told me that 19 out 20 cases of pet poisoning are among dogs. Cats are picky, but (many) dogs will eat anything. Click here for the ASPCA’s list of plants that are toxic to dogs. Among those to avoid are amaryllis, maiden’s breath, peace lily and sago palm.
Don’t forget a place for the dog to do her business. I’ve planted quite a lot of English ivy as ground cover, and the dogs like it, too. Their messes just sort of disappear under the variegated foliage. Personally, I don’t mind if they go on the stone walkways. I’m out there regularly with a hose anyway for my morning quiet time, so it’s easy to spray it away.
As a last resort, consider electric fencing. This worked well for my parents, who took one of our male puppies and had a hard time keeping him out of one special corner of their cottage garden. They used the electric fence – really just a wire – for about two years. It zaps the dog, but causes no harm. There’s also the underground style of invisible fencing that some homeowners like.
Some dog breeds are more destructive than others by their very genetics. Terriers, after all, take their name from terre, or earth, a reference to their digging for rodents. But even my sweet-natured, eager-to-please shepherds, now settling into calm middle age, will never be plant sensitive. How can they be expected to know the difference between walking across a lawn and strolling across the newly planted day lilies? You can have a garden and big dogs. But the challenge of living in harmony … well, that calls for patience, ingenuity and the canine psychological skill of St. Francis.
