Most people that enjoy sharing their lives with dogs also enjoy sharing lots of outdoor activities with them, which can and should include gardening. While its true that having multiple dogs isn't always conducive to having a lavish awe-inspiring landscape design, there's no reason that your gardening talents have to be relegated to the areas of your property where dogs arent welcome.

Landscaping the parts of your yard that are high-traffic areas for your pets is certainly challenging, but definitely not impossible. Many herbs, for example, actually thrive on neglect and abuse. One of the prettiest, softest, most exotic-looking lawns I've ever seen was in a very high-traffic area at a rest stop in Kentucky, where white yarrow had escaped its planting area, and spread throughout the lawn. Regular mowing had kept it clipped quite close, which made it thick and lush and incredibly lovely. Yarrow also comes in shades of red/pink, and can be found at most garden centers or as seed from most herbal seed companies. Try planting some around the edges of your dog yard, and let it spread towards the inside. Imagine how nice it would be to have a yard/lawn that doesn't have to have the grass trimmed, or sprayed with grass and weed killer where it meets the fence. Your yarrow lawn will just provide a lush dense carpet where it is kept mown, and lovely blooms where it's allowed to grow to full height (about knee high) against the fence. Anyone who has mistakenly planted yarrow in a small herb garden can attest to how quickly it can spread, so it seems a good choice for a pet lawn.

Another lawn idea is chamomile. It's very hardy, good for high-traffic and pet areas, and like yarrow will grow thick and lush if it's kept clipped short. It smells like a fresh cut apples when it's stepped on and crushed, or mown, which is a delightful bonus. For covering entire lawns, you could either sow chamomile seeds over the entire area, or plant rows of plants in low-traffic areas and be patient while it spreads. It does not spread with the wild abandon that some yarrows do, but it will spread well enough to carpet a lawn over time.

The myriad of thymes available from plant or seeds are great for walking on too. Many seemingly thrive on punishment and abuse. If you have stepping stones in your dog yard, plant thyme around them, and let it spill across. Available in a wide variety of leaf shape, colors and texture, as well as bloom colors, it's a fabulous choice for a garden border or rock garden too.

An added bonus to using these herbs as lawn plants, is the fact that they also provide some natural insect control. Many other herbs can be used in dog-yard plantings that also are not only attractive and hardy, but do double-duty as insect deterrents as well.
It seems that synthetic pesticides are more of a threat to man than the insects themselves. As each generation of insects becomes more immune to pesticides, stronger and more potent insecticides are released into our environment. In the meantime our animal companions and we humans are absorbing these chemicals as they permeate our homes, gardens and lawns and in turn we are depleting the quality of our health and the health of our pets. Gardeners can help reverse this trend by using natural pest deterrents that have been used successfully for generations.

The following are simple landscape suggestions for a dog yard perimeter or planting bed. All of the plants mentioned are not only attractive, but are either good insect deterrents or have some culinary or other uses that make them doubly desirable in our personal as well as our pets' lives.

Assuming that the space for gardening is long and narrow such as a border along a fence plant a back border of garlic against the fence (you can buy dried cloves at the grocery and plant them, or purchase from most garden centers). Garlic is not a particularly pretty plant much of the year, looking much like iris foliage, but its blooms (in early to mid-summer) are really striking they look like fuzzy purple drumsticks. You can harvest the cloves and the blossoms for your kitchen use, and the plants themselves deter insects. Adding minced and dried garlic to your pet's food dish will not only help control intestinal parasites, but many homeopathic primers state that it is also a deterrent to fleas. Unfortunately however, it sure doesn't help their breath any.

Fennel (bronze or green) does well along a fence too, as it sometimes grows quickly and needs the extra support a fence provides. It's not much of an insect deterrent, but chewing the leaves of fennel will dull an appetite, so break off a few fronds (it's very lacy and pretty, much like dill-weed) and give them to the pet who is supposed to be on a diet. (It tastes like licorice. My English cockers LOVE it). An added bonus of fennel for nature lovers is its attraction to monarch butterflies. Their larvae are attracted to it, meaning they stay in the area to hatch. So, when you find big fat caterpillars all over your fennel don't automatically grab the bug spray you'll be rewarded later with a garden of "flying flowers."

Tansy is a terrific insect repellent. In Colonial days it was used as a "strewing herb" for courtrooms. When prisoners were brought from jail covered with fleas and lice, the bailiff would walk before the inmates, strewing branches of tansy along the aisle. As the insects jumped off the men onto the herb fronds, they hit the juice from the plants that were being crushed underfoot, and died.

Tansy looks much like an exotic lush fern, (it comes in two leaf varieties, curly and flat) but is very sturdy, and loves sunshine so you can achieve the look of a cool shade garden in full sun. It's covered with tiny yellow button flowers for several weeks mid-summer. The leaf patterns of the tansy add a nice texture to your planting, especially when planted in front of lacy fennel branches and the spikes of garlic. It is NOT edible however, and eaten in large doses can be fatal to cattle and goats. If you live on a farm, it might be best to plant it well away from livestock fences.

Pot marigolds (calendula), chamomile, pyrethrum (painted daisy), and artemesia absinthium (wormwood) all are terrific mid-height landscape plants combining a dash of color in the landscape with insect repelling qualities. Pyrethrum petals, when dried and crushed, make an excellent flea powder for your pets and their bedding. The effectiveness of the dried powder just lasts a few days, but you can freeze the fresh flower heads in a Zip-loc baggie and dry and crush as needed, all year long. (I use a dehydrator for my drying, but you can use a microwave, or a conventional oven set VERY low. Or you can hang the plants, heads down, in a dark place with good airflow, such as a windowless garage, closet or attic with a small fan.)

All types of artemesias repel insects, and, when dried, make the lacy gray background you see in almost all herbal wreaths. It's a beautiful background for any flowering plant. A by-note I found interesting, Van Gogh was drinking "tea" made from artemesia absinthium when he went off his rocker and cut off his ear. So, obviously this plant is not a good idea for an herbal tea garden!

Pennyroyal is a great plant for the front of your dog-yard border. It cascades over rock walls and crawls onto paths, "softening" the edges. It should never be taken internally, (or the oil used in large amounts near any pregnant animal) as is true of most of the insect repelling herbs, but I grow it directly in my dog yard with no ill effects. The dogs have never appeared overly interested in it, nor to my knowledge even tasted it. They trot through it (stirring up a delicious peppermint odor), and sometimes stretch out in it, but they don't nibble. You can get either prostrate or upright varieties. Make an infusion of the fresh or dried leaves, and keep in a spray bottle in the fridge for a cooling blast of insect spray for you or your pets (it smells minty-fresh too!)

Basil and sage are not only important in the kitchen, but have insect repelling qualities as well. Basil should not be allowed to blossom, as it quickly becomes leggy and unattractive after flowering, but sage has lovely purple flowers most of the summer. Of course, lavender has been used through the ages in closets and drawers to repel moths. It's a little harder to grow in some areas, but is just as effective in any insect repellent planting as it was in grandma's closets.

Santolina, which comes in varieties of gray or green foliage, is nicknamed "lavender cotton." If you find you can't grow lavender, you should try planting santolina. It has much the same scent and insect repelling oils, but is less fickle in its growing habits. It is covered with small button flowers in a bright yellow much of the summer.

Rosemary and eucalyptus are two of my favorite plants, and I like knowing that they're "working" while they're improving the looks of my garden. Rosemary too comes in an upright and a prostrate variety, and comes in varieties with different colored flowers in shades of deep purple to pale violet and white. Eucalyptus can be cranky in climates with temperatures below Zone 7, but if it grows well in your area, be sure to include it.

I've never grown any "shoo-fly plant" or tobacco in my garden, but I've read good things about their insect controlling properties. I think when you're shopping for herbs, it's a pretty safe bet that anything that has a scent that is really strong will be offensive to insects.

(Don't forget to check out scented geraniums too. They are not winter hardy in most areas but they look terrific doubling as houseplants in winter windows!) Also, for areas you would prefer your dogs not dig or lay in, the more scented plants you can put there, the better!

Everyone should grow mints. But always in pots, because it's VERY invasive. Don't (!) plant it in a bed that you don't want to be ENTIRELY covered in mint in a couple of years! However, if you have a corner of the dog yard that the dogs keep worn down to the bare dirt, try planting a few mint plants to cover the area.

There are hundreds of different varieties of mint, including lots of citrus and my favorite, chocolate mint. If we get ants in the house (they seem to always be sending scouts to look for my dog food can) I put a handful of mint branches in their path and they quickly disappear.

Plain old marigolds seem to help keep insects at bay as well. And they have the added bonus of flowering all summer long, adding a variety of orange to red in your color scheme. My dogs hate the smell and taste of marigolds, so I can plant them in the big concrete urn where our canine Grandma Hayzel prefers to cuddle, knowing it will be intact when I return. Unlike the hundreds of pansies, petunias, salvia and impatiens Ive planted in it over the years, only to find them crushed by a snoozing canine.

There are dozens of good herb websites on the Internet (I use the multi-search engine <www.dogpile.com> for all my searches), and hundreds of useful books available on herbs. Any good herbal primer will be useful in planning your garden or plantings for your pets. You'll find a myriad of ways to incorporate herbs in your pet care routine, from diet to hair care. Don't blame me if your herb border quickly begins to outgrow its planned boundary. Growing herbs is as addictive as eating potato chips. You truly can't have "just one."
You'll find that growing herbs usually turns everyone into recyclers too, as you find yourself looking for bottles to put up your dried leaves and blossoms and vinaigrettes (which make excellent rinses for the dogs' baths, as well as a diet additive for both you and your pets. . . you can put almost any herb in it, just add room temperature apple cider or wine vinegar to fresh or dried herb leaves, seal and store in a dark place for a few weeks). Some of the best bottles I've found for vinegars are discarded wine and liquor bottles and small condiment jars.

We all have a responsibility to our environment, our pets and ourselves to search for non-toxic ways to combat our problems. And in that respect, herbs seem to be the answer to almost any question.

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