Pet-Friendly Landscape Tips

Miles Stephens from Davey's South Pittsburgh office shares advice on how to maintain a healthy landscape as a dog owner.

In this episode we cover:  

• Having a designated area for your dog (1:13)
• Maintaining your turf lawn with a dog (2:27)
• Plants harmful to dogs (3:22)
• Pet-friendly grass (6:21)
• Hardscaping your garden (7:03)
• Ways to provide shade for your dogs (8:43)
• Being a responsible dog owner (10:24)
• Seasonal tree trends (12:52)
• Protecting your household from ticks (15:12)

To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.

To learn more about how to maintain your grass, read our blog, My Lawn Is Turning Brown in Summer… What Do I Do?

To learn more about having a pet-friendly landscape, read this MarthaStewart.com interview.

Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company 

Connect with Doug Oster at www.dougoster.com. 

Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!    

Transcript

[music]

Doug Oster: Welcome to The Davey Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborist's favorite trees and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer. I'm joined this week again by my friend, Miles Stephens.

He is a district manager for the Davey Tree Expert Company at the Pittsburgh South Residential Office. I've actually been down there a couple of times and we have worked together for many years. Today, we're talking about a really interesting topic about dogs in the landscape. Miles, I hear you have a local expert that helped you a little bit out with this topic?

Miles: Yes, my daughter, that's-- Her specialty is dog training, went for that type of stuff and is taking some college courses on it, so, when I have questions I need answered about dogs, why-- We're good.

Doug: What are some of the challenges about having a dog in the landscape? Dogs and trees go together like peas and carrots, so what are some of the challenges?

Miles: Well, some of the challenges are, first, I always look at having a nice area for your dog to be outside. It's like, "Don't put them out there." When they say "I have a nice gravel area." Well, that's not so great when it's hot out and they're sharp objects. I always looked at-- If you have a nice little area, they get a little bit of sun. If it's colder out, they like to lay in the sun and, when it's warmer out, a nice tree to lay underneath its no different than people.

If you're going to take a nap outside, you're probably not going to lay in the middle of the sun at 90 degrees, 85, you'll find a nice shady spot where your hammock is and that's where you're going to hang out and a dog is not a whole lot different. They just look for things like that, just a nice area, enough exercise area for them, good healthy exercise and that type of thing is good to maybe have a designated area for. The big thing is just having a comfortable area for them though, not any different than a person.

Doug: Well, one of the things that people complain about are the spots the dog leaves after going to the bathroom. I like your idea of having a specific area for the dog, then you don't have to worry so much about that. Dogs like to go to the same place time after time. I know from people talking about their turf that there's all sorts of issues with that and they keep going over and over and over again. It causes brown spots in the lawn.

Miles: Right. Yes, so that's why you have to have a designated area for them. I've known a few people that had dogs who were so dedicated that, wherever the dog would go, they would be out with a watering can. That's a great idea, but not necessarily overly practical for a lot of people depending what your work situation is, what your time situation is. You can do that and I've seen where it's been highly effective for that, but I can't say you do that all the time, right? It's not practical for most people.

Doug: I've seen the same thing where people are dragging a hose around. Again, like you said, not practical. Are there plants that were growing out there that might hurt the dog?

Miles: Yes, they are and that's why I got a little list going there. A couple of them so surprised me a little bit, like Rose of Sharon.

Doug: Really?

Miles: If a dog would ingest some of that, it's more likely to cause irritation or maybe vomiting, most times it's not going to be an extreme situation for them. But Rose of Sharon, tulips. Tulips is another one. You'd never think of that and maybe because it's an early season type thing and a planting bed, the dogs don't get around a lot, but tulips. Lilies is another one to keep them away from.

Doug: I had heard about lilies, but I didn't know about tulips. This is going way off base, but in the Netherlands during World War II, they actually had a thing called tulip soup, so there's something about that bulb you can eat, but it must be the flower itself, must be something that's in it.

Miles: Right, an irritant or whatever which is not good for them. English Ivy, I'm not sure if we said English Ivy can be a toxin. Hydrangeas-

Doug: Geez.

Miles: - is another one. Rhododendron, yes, that surprised me, but it may be a situation there where it can be toxic and not healthy for them, but they may not have any desire to chew on it anyhow. About dogs not good for dogs, yet I see deer chew on Rhododendron all the time, so it doesn't bother deer, but, dogs, somehow it's not a good thing for. Obviously, daffodils and another one, yews, so I think more of the yews as part of the fruit that comes there from--

Doug: I know we have something in common, we both deal with dogs that aren't the smartest in the world, yet my two dogs have never tried to eat any of that stuff. It's good to know that, if you do see them nibbling on that, it could be a problem.

Miles: Right. I think the-- Whatever reason, not their sense of smell or whatever, is like, "That's just not a good thing to eat." Not a plant thing, but I remember this coming up a few years ago, something else that can be unhealthy for dogs is cocoa bean mulch. It's like coffee, it's like chocolate, so it has caffeine and what you have in chocolate is supposed to be very bad.

It can be more fatal to cats I've heard, but cats, they're not interested in chocolate. For whatever reason, their taste buds are such, but, for dogs, it can really be a problem for them if they do eat it.

Doug: Miles, you brought up cats and now we got to ask the questions, dog person or cat person?

Miles: Oh, dog person.

Doug: All right. For this podcast, that's a good thing.

Miles: [laughs] We do have two cats, you know? They're nice, but I'm still a dog person. I'm a dog person.

Doug: Is there any kind of grasses that you could plant that would be better off when you're talking about having the pets out there?

Miles: I think you want to go turf grasses, if you're going to be more high traffic tolerants, so turf type, tall fescue would be better. Kentucky bluegrass, I don't think ryegrass would be as good or fine fescue, but certainly turf type, tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass. Really in any situation where you're talking about higher foot traffic, be it person, be it dog, if everything goes on, I think those are going to be your better choices for turf grass there and more tolerant, able to recover from the activity of the dog too. Those would be your two top ones for around here.

Doug: What do you think about when we think about hardscaping around the garden? We've talked a little bit about it related to dogs, but concrete pavers, mulch beds, what are you thinking?

Miles: Well, I mean just pavers, a little path, so you can get in to where your plants are and you don't want to walk through the mulch. I wouldn't really have a problem with that and mulch, you may have to have some tolerance for some excavation work by dogs. They decide to start digging and that can happen out of the blue sometimes. You have a dog who never digs and all of a sudden one day decides they smell something or something of interest or thinks there's a chipmunk or a squirrel hiding in there somewhere, then they decide to go after it.

Those are all fine and they should be gentle on the paws and whatever, so that's fine. I would probably stay away from large area, surface area, that's covered by some sort of product, be it cement, gravel and those type of things. I would probably stay away from those. I'm thinking more so the heat of the summer, it's just that heat radiates. If you think about 90 degree weather, do you really enjoy walking down a sidewalk on a city street, that heat coming off there?

Once again, you think about it, at least we can perspire and a dog's cooling system is panting or whatever. Depending on how thick your dog's coat is, I had a couple of huskies and that was tough on them. Winter-time, it didn't bother them at all, but that summer stuff is hard on a dog. They're not as efficient in some ways of cooling down. Just imagine wearing your winter coat and not being able to sweat, then you're trying to cool off, doesn't work too good.

Doug: Well, that leads me to shade and who else better to talk to about shade than a tree guy?

[laughter]

Miles: Yes, ideal for them, for sure.

Doug: We know trees, but there's other things too that you could use for your dogs, I guess pergolas or umbrellas?

Miles: Right, some landscape structure like that would be nice and, if that's in the middle and you have that set up, even if it's a light pavement totally shaded, it shouldn't be a problem. If it's in a landscape bed area type that there's some smaller shrubs around that maybe the dog is not inclined to dig up, those would be nice too for the dog to hang out. I mean, they're going to go to where they can feel most comfortable, so, if you have some shade structure there, they're going to go to that.

Cold days, maybe not. Hot days, they'll go to those places. Whether they're smart or not, they sense that they're uncomfortable and they're going to go to where they're comfortable and that's, just like anything else, just like if I'm sweating to death, I'm going to go somewhere I'm nice and cool. Dogs are going to do the same thing. Hot? Miserable? They're going to go where they can feel more comfortable.

Doug: I think a lot of what we're talking about here too is also about being a good dog owner. You really don't want the dog running wild in the back and finding some of these things that we talked about. If you got an area where they're digging, it's certainly easy enough to fix, but it's about training the dog, and I think from listening to you, having a specific

area. For me, I got a 30 by 40 vegetable garden. I take the dog out, I close the gate, and I watch the dog. I want to make sure that it's not-- Basically, I don't want him digging up my garlic or something like that. That little dog of mine, that keeps all the chipmunks out, keeps all the rabbits out, just having her run around in there. Talk a little bit about being a responsible dog owner.

Miles: It's like once again, providing a good environment for them to be in, to do those type of things. Let your dog have some time outside to sort of roam a little bit, if you will. They like seeing different things too. Walk your dog. Some people, it works out well, it depends on their neighborhood. Other people, it's not such an easy thing to do. There are dog parks now that you can take your pets to, let them get some exercise, that type of thing. Those are all good things as a good pet owner you should do.

Doug: My dog uses the garden like I do. In fact, it happened today. She wants to go out, wants to go out. I take her out. She just runs and lays in the sun and just enjoys time, just sitting in the garden. That's not what she's supposed to be doing out there, but that's just what she does.

Miles: Yes, a dog will-- We take Thor out and he lays on the walk, watches the world go by, maybe it's warmer out in the grass, and yes, whatever. Then he barks when he wants to come back in, when he's bored and decides, "Well, there's nothing going on out here," whatever. He goes crazy if he looks out the window and there's a feeder out there and also a squirrel likes to come to the feeder. He's ready to go out the window because he's like, "Ooh, playtime," or whatever. It's like, "Well, they want to play with you."

Doug: See, that's so funny that you say that because my dog's the same way. She thinks that she's protecting us from the squirrels or something. When that squirrel comes to the feeder, and I tried to dissuade those squirrels from getting to the feeder, but they're always going to get there once or twice. That dog, same thing, goes nuts, runs right over me and wants to go out of the window.

Miles: Yes. My husky used to have-- She used to be-- Fat birds. "You are not going to catch the bird. Forget it." She'd be like jumping. She'd throw this hop. She'd hop up in the air. We'd die laughing because instead of running, she'd go, ping, ping, hop up. It's like, "You're not a bird dog. You're not going to catch the bird." That's a little fun exercise for them, I guess. It gets them all excited. I think she gets more excited. I think Thor gets more excited about seeing the squirrel and their rabbits out in front of the house sometimes too. She gets more excited than cats do. Cats just sort of look. He's like tail wagging, ears up, ready to launch out of the window.

Doug: Let's talk a little bit about the season, a little bit about-- Let's get some tree stuff going here besides the pets. What have you seen so far this year that has you worried?

Miles: I think we saw a decent amount of damage, winter desiccation, drying damage. I think a lot of that came about when we had that really quick freeze right around Christmas time. A lot of boxwoods, hollies, arborvitae, blue atlas cedar, all those took a pretty good beating in that. Hollies, for the most part, seem like they're starting to push out some new growth, but they're going to look sparse for a while, because they dropped almost all the leaves. Remember about the properties, looking at those and look bad, but you look at the buds. The buds look pretty viable. They look good and they've started to come back. Waiting to see what the boxwoods, see how they recover.

Doug: That's where I was going next because I was at an event yesterday and I saw a whole line of boxwoods and they looked about halfway gone. You think in general, these plants, I have a shrub called Kerria, that's a monster and it's usually evergreen, eight foot by eight foot. The whole thing, it's pushing up from the bottom, but the whole thing just turned brown. I had to cut the whole thing back. I heard a Pachysandra, even ivy, these are tough as nails.

Miles: Yes, ivy. Somebody has a whole hillside in the back of their house and it's all brown. Now, it's starting to push growth out and I said, "Well, be patient. It's going to take a while. This is going to be a couple of years before this recovers, this big, a huge area as this is," but it is starting to green up or whatever. What was weird about Pachysandra, I saw Pachysandra beds and it would be just like the edge, like maybe a foot in, then the rest behind it looked okay, but that front edge on those beds, especially, if it was for the west, northwest facing, was beat up a lot more than the rest of the bed might look okay, but that edge, that first little bit around the edge was all brown. I'm anticipating that it'll probably come back too, but it could be slower.

The boxwoods are the ones that bother me the most. I still think with boxwoods, sometimes we sort of push it a little bit here with growing them here. I think a little more sensitive and we like to think they are with some of our weather, but that quick freeze really did a number on them.

Doug: Something else when we get back to dogs that I think about, and I guess for me too, are ticks. I worry about ticks and I'm trying to wear protective clothing, but I'm finding ticks on the dog even this time of the year. I've heard that we should get rid of our barberry. First, it's invasive, but it's also supposed to be a tick magnet. Have you heard that?

Miles: Yes, barberries. Actually, I do volunteer work out of Raccoon State Park. I do trail maintenance, and so I'm fighting the ever-losing battle against model four rose and barberry, but I know model four rose, barberry, even privet, those are non-natives. One of the reasons that you find more tick activity there is they tend to green up earlier and they stay greener longer, so the ticks will stay in them longer. I do what I can to protect myself against the ticks, but I'm cutting that back. Yesterday was a rarity. When I got done, I didn't have one tick on me. Usually, no matter what, I'll end up with ticks on me. I just got to, obviously, get them off for the day, but whatever.

I think barberry, they said they green up earlier, stay greener longer, the privet, model four rose, and so it makes a great place for them to hang out. They're usually right along trails, which means people, mammals are going to pass right through there, which is what they're looking for. Yes, that is an issue there. What's interesting with barberry, I was at a meeting earlier this year and, of course, being invaded because of the berries. I never thought much about it, but that's how, of course, they spread. They've actually coming out with some new barberries for the landscape, but produce no fruit. I think it's going to be a couple of years before we see that,

Doug: When you hear that, when you hear like, "I have a rose of Sharon that's supposed to be sterile." Do you think it's going to be sterile? Will it be sterile? I always wonder.

Miles: The thing, the proof of the pudding is just like-- How many years ago? Maybe 20 years ago, we came up with the new native dogwood that doesn't get anthracnose. It's okay in a very controlled situation. The reality of it all is when you put it out in the real world, when it's exposed to every scenario possible, and then you find out, it may have a tendency to lesser severity, but it still gets anthracnose. Same thing with that. You put it out in the environment. It's like you have to wait and see what happens, whether it will be sort of like Jurassic Park. They made them all females. They can't possibly. What happens is, how did that happen?

Things happen in nature. As a result, these plants are supposed to be sterile, and then they're not, through time. Proof will be in the pudding. How many years down the road, we'll see whether that was a good thing or not such a good thing. That's happened before plants as far as planting trees, this is a great street tree. Honey locust or sweet gum, and then honey locust puts out tons of roots and destroys sidewalks, and sweet gum produces the fruit balls that nobody can clean up. The guy that came up with that idea, he's long since retired, so who cares?

Doug: All right, Miles. That was good stuff. I think we're going to have to get Thor and Lulu together because they sound like they're about on the same level here. As always, thanks for the great information. Thanks for talking. We'll be talking soon on the radio show, and I'm sure we'll talk again here for the podcast. Great to see you.

Miles: Great to see you too, Doug. Thank you very much.

Doug: It's always fun to talk to an old friend like Miles. I think we're actually going to put a play date together for those two smart dogs. Now, tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davy Tree Expert Company. I am your host, Doug Oster, and do me a big favor, subscribe to the podcast, so you'll be able to listen to every episode we do. Have an idea for a show or a comment? Send me an email to podcasts at davy.com. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S at davey.com. As always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

[00:19:42] [END OF AUDIO]