Stepables
Posted: June 23, 2009 Filed under: Apso Aficionados 2 Comments
Having spent last weekend here, putting her nose to the Gompa Lhasa Apso grindstone, Vickie redesigned the house dog yard for me. And wouldn’t ya know…that email seems to have gone missing! One resource she suggested was Stepables. Any one else have some good ‘dog friendly’ gardening advice?
Kunza at FleetFire Timbers 
I like “Dog Friendly Gardens (Garden Friendly Dogs)” by Cheryl Smith (2004 Dogwise Publishing). Cheryl covers everything from planning to planting, and includes sections on hardscapes, ponds, vegetable gardens, composts and mulches, etc. There’s even a behavior section with dog training tips.
Vickie forwarded the above mentioned email:
Have you ever thought about terracing the dog yard at the base of the stairs? I’m envisioning a stone wall, a raised planting bed at the base of the stone wall, some type of climbing plants, whatever will volunteer around the perimeter, lots of “steppable” plants. Maybe a center area of pea gravel.
STEPABLES.COM – Plants that tolerate foot traffic (We have Elfin thyme in our rock paths; you can search the site by plant zone).
As far as the forest garden goes, I think a good cleaning out would open up your options. However, as you pointed out, that’s a monumental task when one has to snake the trees out!