Pet Friendly Garden
non-berry bearing tree is best and also a considered avoidance of bird feeders will lessen the gruesome gifts they bring back to your kitchen after a day playing outside, and will keep local populations of robins and tits safe. Store-bought bird food is not the healthiest for foraging pets, so this restriction of wildlife attractors applies to dogs too. Likewise ponds and pond water are not the best source of hydration on a hot day. Pets can drown too so take precautions if you want a pond or already have one. It is true that informal gardens lend themselves best to sharing with pets; a structured design can easily be undermined by a romping pet that will scratch, dig and generally disturb a carefully crafted border. Equally true is that cats and dogs tend to beeline across all sorts of diagonals, so formal pathways are often ignored. When it comes to paths, the cleanest and best options are bricks, pavers or concrete. Gravel will be flicked everywhere by dogs and litter-boxed by cats. Mulched paths will turn into a mess in no time and cats could mistake it for a giant litter. Some mulches can even cause harm; many organic ones have spores and bacteria that are allergenic to pets. Cocoa bean mulch is a byproduct of chocolate production and like chocolate, if ingested by dogs it can trigger vomiting, diarrhea and muscle tremors. In extreme cases it can cause the heart rate to increase, hyperactivity and even fatal seizures. So if you want to stop weeds with mulches, consider instead mass planting or laying down a weed membrane. That said, bare soil is an invitation to dig and while the membrane will keep the weeds down it can also be inviting for dogs to tear at. www.SelfBuild.ie
Safe planting
Mass planting is therefore my favoured solution, also because of the aesthetics. Plus it will help you steer your pet around the garden. Low growing hedges or shrubs will create corridors, and with the addition of softer planting you can offer alternative navigation options. Hardier shrubs and grasses can take the punishment of pets and establish quickly. In terms of toxicity most grasses are no problem at all to pets unless the blades are razor sharp so apart from pampas you could develop a prairie planting style by including Stipa arundinacea, Stipa gigantea, Stipa tennuissima, Festuca Intense Blue, Calamagrostis spp., and the list goes on. Perennials may need protection until established; the more mature the plant the better it can withstand abuse. Some perennials are tougher than others and the Nepeta species which cats go wild for - so much so that its common name is catnip - will withstand hours and days of cats rolling about in it. The issue is that its fragrance will attract other neighbourhood cats as it may in fact be the feline equivalent of a recreation drug. So you may opt to put it on the naughty list! Safe bedding for your pet includes Viola tricolour, which can have an uncanny resemblance to a cat’s face, and Alyssum. For the border Acanthus, Heuchera, Aquilegias, Campanulas, Lavender and Achillea are all great fillers, the latter two are even used as herbal veterinary medicine. It is a nice idea to green roof the pet house; this will not only add a quirky aesthetic to an otherwise utilitarian structure, it will also provide a pit stop for pollinators. If you like that thought you could opt for Calendula, Echeveria spp., Fragaria vesca,„
Plants to avoid include clockwise from top left: chrysanthemum, lily of the valley, rhododendron and azalea.
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