How to Pet-Proof Your Garden

If you're a gardener with pets — maybe a dog (or two) — then you've surely seen your carefully planted flower beds or sculpted grassy play areas unintentionally marred by your playful pups.

Well, you don't have to take off your gardening gloves, throw up your hands and give your pets free rein over the yard. There are some simple strategies to keep dogs out of your flower beds that can limit the (unintentional) damage done by your pets.

How to Keep Dogs Out of Flower Beds

Pet-proofing your garden by keeping your dogs out of your flower beds is a tough task, says Matty Garrett, greenspace director at the Wylde Center community garden in Decatur, Georgia.

Matty says dogs tend to dig for a few reasons: Worms are tasty, and to get to the cooler dirt below the surface.

Putting up a fence to keep your dogs out of sensitive spaces may be an obvious solution. But, adding a fence is not ideal if you want an accessible garden space unencumbered by structured borders.

"Aside from a fence, you can distract, distract, distract," says Brandi Hunter Munden, the American Kennel Club's vice president of public relations and communications. "You can give them a separate area, away from the garden, that is acceptable for them to dig. You can also provide mental stimulation toys and exercise to try and decrease their energy and reduce destructive behavior."

Here's an idea for a special play place for your pet: Dig a shallow hole and fill it with sand. Add some dog toys and your best buddy will have his own sand box.

Also, consider using hanging pots or containers placed where your pets can't reach them. Plant raised beds rather than tender, in-ground beds.

Matty suggests using "dog hardy" plants in areas where your pets will play. These would include boxwoods, native azaleas and monkey grass that can stand up to traffic from dogs. Or use tough groundcovers rather than grass.

Marianne Binetti, syndicated gardening columnist for 40 years, suggests planning your flower and garden beds around your dog's habits.

"Watch where you dog travels and put pathways where they walk," says Marianne. She recommends using natural cedar chips that repel fleas for paths and flower beds.

How to Keep Dogs From Urinating in Your Garden or Flower Bed

You have a couple of options if you want to change where you dog prefers to urinate, says Marianne. You can train your dog to use a new spot by walking your dog to where you would like them to go whenever you take them out. That might take 10-14 days of consistency to build a new habit.

Another option: Marianne says some owners of male dogs have had success with hanging plastic gallon jugs on bushes that serve as their pet's favorite "pit stop." Your dog won't appreciate the ricochet effect when they urinate and may choose to relieve themselves elsewhere, she says.

Marianne offers some additional ideas for keeping your pets — both cats and dogs — from becoming pests in the garden.

• To keep dogs from lying down in flower beds, simply drive some short stakes into the ground throughout the bed.
  
  
• Install a chicken-wire fence to protect entire beds (as long as it's tall enough). To keep it from being an eyesore, drive several tall stakes in the ground around the bed's perimeter. Slip a roll of chicken wire over an end stake. Unroll the wire and prop it up against the rest of the stakes when in use, and roll it up to when you don't want it visible.
  
  
• To keep cats from digging in soil plant a brick. When they run into it, they will look for a different place to dig.

Do Smells Like Coffee Grounds or Pepper Deter Pets From Gardens?

These can be deterrents, but they are temporary ones and can attract other unwanted pests to your garden," Brandi says "There are some other deterrents like planting a rosemary bush — dogs are not fond of the smell — or (spreading) vinegar around the area they are attracted to."

While some of these scent strategies might work with some dog breeds, you shouldn't expect them to work on all dogs, Marianne says.

And what about cats?

To keep away cats, try spreading a layer of coffee grounds in sensitive areas, says Marianne, who also suggests planting pungent herbs such as rosemary and sage to keep cats out of a garden bed. Another strategy: Plant the annual Coleus canina —developed with a very pungent smell that drives away cats — under birdfeeders or wherever you want to discourage your cat from going.