Patio or Lawn?

We have a fairly compact garden here, the grass is now bare where Marius has either piddled on it or eaten it

I think we would be better off with patio with perhaps some raised borders for splashes of colour. Do any of you have similar? I would love to see photos to give me ideas to steal if you don't mind sharing?

I prefer lawn normally but with being only small it looks awful I love having flowers and shrubs so am worried it may look a bit stark?

Am really interested in what you have down.

My mum has a small yard and she has lots of pots with lovely flowers and plants in. The only thing is Fudgie like to cock his leg and pee on them!!

Hi A-M. I have paved over all of my garden. You can see it in Kazz's thread (you posted there recently).
I love it now! The pots and hanging baskets bring a lovely splash of colour and I have no mess

I have a large paved patio with deep raised beds of two different heights and then the remainder of the garden is through a gate to my pond and decking and borders. The only grass I have is ornamental. It definately doesn't look anything other than lush, it is packed with plants that survive as the dogs stay off them. Even a cocked leg doesn't reach into the beds.
here's a few old photo's

Call me old fashioned,but i still prefer a lawn Anne Marie.

How about raised borders made from railway sleepers (new ones only cost around £17-£20 each and dont ooze creosote like old ones).Timber looks so natural when allowed to age gracefully and is robust enough to withstand a Rottie! Run a router with a bull nose bit along the edges and they will be comfy enough to be used as extra seating.Plants like Mexican orange blossom,bamboos,hebe's,fatsia japonica,ornamental elders,laurel,buxus are pretty strong and wont be bothered by the occasional chewwing session.Provided the plants are elevated out of his eye line in raised beds-he should leave them alone.

Then lay plain grey paving slabs round the outside of your lawn which would frame your grass and with a bit of encouragement from yourselves-Marius may use it as a path!

I agree with Steve. From an environmental point of view too, it's better to leave as much ground as possible uncovered by concrete etc, and allow plant growth wherever possible, perferably native species.

If you find you have to pave an area, be sure to leave gaps where rain water can drain into the ground to replenish the water table, not ushered away into drainage systems where it just adds to ever increasing overflow.

I know one small garden isn't going to make much difference but if we all did our bit, it would help water problems enormously

Ohh thanks for those lovely photos Trouble! That is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind, cheers!

Steve, I agree with you and much prefer lawn myself, but our garden really is too small to be effective. It is littered with brown patches and don't forget he is an avid grass eater and pulls it up in clumps . It looks terrible now, heaven knows what it would look like in winter, I dread to think!

Thanks for the tips on what to plant, he rarely chews the plants to be fair, he is too fixated on the grass:smt002

If you really prefer lawn you could always replace the lawn with bark chippings or gravel and then when he gets older go back to having a lawn. That way it's not quite such a permanent thing. For me it was not really an option although my garden is not that small, about 40'x100' we back onto a park which is uphill and when it rains the garden became waterlogged with the water draining from the park and we would have to paddle to the shed. We started with the patio which is about 30' deep the borders around the edges are 6' deep and raised about a foot so we can have plenty of greenery. That didn't cure the problem though, so the pond and decking were added again with lots of borders and the back of the garden has a 12' deep border across the width of the garden. I have used most of the plants steve has suggested and more and probably have more plants in the garden than most. We harvest rain water from the shed and conservatory roof so we are as green as we can be under the circumstances. I think sometimes you just have to deal with what you have.

I was just shaping up to say something about that Pod - trust you to get in there first!