With this gardening hack, you can have a stunning lawn – even if your dog likes to make holes in it.
We’ve all seen pictures of perfectly manicured lawns before, and many of us have even wished that our own outdoor spaces could look that neat and tidy. But, as anyone with a lawn will tell you, it takes an enormous amount of upkeep to maintain such a pristine garden – unless you plan on never actually using it.
For most of us, mowing our lawns regularly is enough to keep them looking as neat as can be expected for a well-loved outdoor space. But there’s one thing that can make lawns even harder to keep tidy – dogs.
If you’ve got a dog, you’ll know they love nothing more than running around your garden and potentially even digging small holes in your lawn where they bury toys or bones just to dig them up later.
But according to gardening expert Monty Don, there is a way you can keep your lawn clean and tidy even if you have a dog.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) revealed on Instagram that it has collaborated with Monty Don to create a “dog garden” that will be featured at the Chelsea Flower Show next month.
The garden features a lawn dotted with daises, dandelions, and clover that have been “painstakingly transplanted” from the gardens at RHS Wisley, especially for the annual flower show.
The idea behind planting the flowers in the lawn is that it should make the grass more “hardy”, which is perfect for a lawn loved by dogs, according to the gardening experts.
The Instagram caption read: “These stalwarts of the garden, though not always planted intentionally, provide pollen for wildlife, help mitigate drought, and go far in improving the hardiness of the lawn – which is just what we need for a garden enjoyed by our four-legged friends.”
RHS also shared a clip of Monty Don talking about the garden project, where he said he “loved” the idea of the RHS “carefully growing weeds” to plant in a lawn.
He added: “It’s making me very happy.”
Although dandelions and clovers are seen as “weeds” that are not welcome in manicured lawns, they can actually be beneficial to your garden. Bees and butterflies love dandelions so the flowers are beneficial to your garden, and they are safe for dogs to eat, too.
Clover is considered dog-friendly because it is more resilient to dog urine than traditional grass lawns, and it is soft and cushiony under your dog’s paws. However, it can give your pooch an upset stomach if they eat it in large amounts.
Guy Barter, the chief horticulturist at the RHS, said: “Our ultimate dog lawn is pretty humble, combining only a hard-wearing grass seed and the stalwarts of the garden – daisies, dandelions and clover. It’s a reminder that lawns don’t have to look perfect to be perfect for our pets, everyday use and the wider environment.”
And garden designer Jamie Butterworth, who worked with Monty Don to create his Chelsea garden, said: “Despite this being the greatest flower show on earth, we don’t want this to be a manicured lawn. We want this to be a lawn that’s a little rough around the edges, that has dandelions and daisies growing freely, the ultimate hard-wearing lawn. The shaggy model of a lawn is back.”