No matter how much you love your dog, you don’t want him or her rooting around in your flower gardens. The digging can destroy your beautiful blooms, plus create a big mess. But you can prevent dogs from rooting around in your flower beds by employing one of the following methods for how to keep dogs out of flower beds.
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Five Tips for Keeping Pets Out of Flower Beds:
- Fence them in. Prevent dogs from entering your flower beds by installing decorative fencing. Or, create a temporary barrier out of chicken wire. Drive a few stakes into the ground around your flower beds, then roll the chicken wire around the stakes. When you don’t want the wire visible, roll it up and remove. Vertical gardening is a great go-too, as well!
- Create a play zone. Dogs often dig due to boredom. To prevent your pet from heading to your flower beds for some fun, create a play zone all their own with lots of toys. Dig out a shallow area in your yard, then fill with sand and some toys. This play pit should be much more enticing than your flower beds.
- Use dog repellents for flower beds. Dogs don’t like spicy or bitter flavors, so mix up a homemade repellent using these flavors and sprinkle it on your flower beds. An easy spicy dog repellent includes equal parts of red pepper and powdered mustard. For a bitter dog repellent, dissolve bitter orange, an essential oil used as a flavoring agent, on spent coffee grounds. Bonus: The coffee grounds also help fertilize your garden. Buy bitter orange on Amazon.
- Use prickly brush. Not surprisingly, dogs don’t like to get poked. Save all of your prickly clippings, such as those from rose bushes, hawthorns or barberries, and toss around the edges of your flower beds. If you don’t like the “rustic” look of branches strewn about, tuck the branches under the bottom leaves of your flowers. Read about these plants you really don’t want to grow next to each other.
- Train your dog. Just as dogs can be taught to sit or roll over, they can be taught to stay out of flower beds. It takes some time and consistent reinforcement, but once your dog learns that your flower beds are off-limits, you should never have problems again. Here’s how great dog owners train their furry friends.
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Melanie Radzicki McManus