by Guest Ranter Hannah Karena Jones
There are a number of noble reasons to replace a lawn with flowers: supporting pollinators and birds, increasing biodiversity, lowering your carbon footprint. I’m going to go on record and admit I did it to curb the appeal of my front yard serving as a favorite poopstop for the neighborhood dogs.
I live in a densely populated and very walkable historic town. For the most part, every house has a sidewalk sandwiched by a stretch of weedy hellstrip and a front yard within the range of two- to ten-feet deep. While flowerbeds and shrubs make their appearances—and there’s definitely been an uptick in flower boxes and stoop container gardens in the last few years of increased pandemic-related gardening enthusiasm—this is a town classically dedicated to the aesthetic of neat and tidy grass lawns. Prime real estate, from a dog’s perspective!
Don’t get me wrong: I totally think grass is fair game. When walking my own dog, he makes use of those hellstrips and I make use of compostable waste bags to pick up after him.
Our other neighbors…not so much.
The town’s dog population spiked as more people adopted pandemic pups. The occasional inconsiderately left piles—let’s assume positive intent and say they forgot their bags just this once—started to become a more difficult-to-excuse regular pattern. Signs have started blooming in front yards on every street: varieties on the theme of “be considerate / be respectful / be responsible / be a good neighbor and clean up after your dog!”
I understand and agree with the sentiment. I pick up after my own dog. I don’t want to pick up after everyone else’s dog in my free time. Also, why, people? This is just gross.
Every weekend I’d walk out to plops and piles on my two-foot by fifty-foot alley-facing hellstrip. And admonitory signs, no matter how well-executed, simply do not go with the theme of my garden.
For all those noble reasons previously cited, plus one more, I dug up the hellstrip and planted catmint, lavender, and irises (as seen at top). Tulips, poppies, and bachelor buttons. Salvia and heather. The bees loved it and I loved looking at it. Something unexpected happened, though: While grass is fair game, apparently nobody seemed willing to let their dogs desecrate a flower bed. This isn’t the temporary respect of a newly planted garden, either. I haven’t found any evidence, not once in three years.
Meanwhile, though, my grass front yard (seen above) remained just as popular with the inconsiderate neighbors as it ever was.
This past summer, I dug up the front yard and converted it to another garden: crocuses and daffodils, bellflowers, geraniums, and garden phlox, with ferns and hostas nestled underneath the shade of the holly tree. The image above shows the early stages of this transformation.
My neighbor texted me the other day, frustrated with the never-ending poop piles on her property, letting me know she was ordering a sign that she hoped would turn the tide, and asking if we were having the same problem on our side of the street.
“Not since we made it a garden!” I was satisfied to report.
Hannah Karena Jones, who lives near Philadelphia, is a PennState Master Gardener and contribute regularly to their online publications. Other gardening writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The National Gardener and GreenPrints: Gardening Stories from the Heart.
I, too, live in a Philadelphia semi-urban neighborhood. And the hell strip and three foot wide bed across from it are planted. But post-pandemic, I’ve noticed more dog owners on their phones or in blue tooth conversation. They are not focused on what their pooch is doing. I’ve reminded one or two that their pet is defecating on my Heucherella ‘Sweet Tea’. and they do pick up. But the peeing happens all the time and leads to the demise of most ground covers like creeping thyme, ajuga, or creeping Jenny. Once one dog lifts a leg, all the others being walked by need to do a “cover tinkle” as I like to call it. So I garden with gloves and I don’t eat the chives.
Terrific post – it blows my mind that dog owners allow this sort of thing, and I think that Eric (above) has a point – cell phones have made it worse than it ever was. – MW
Well that’s certainly the best solution! And more visually pleasing too.
Although I always walk my dog with poop bags in hand, I so much rather my dog would do his business on the sidewalk or street. It’s so much easier to pick up and I wouldn’t have people complaining that my 12 lb dog was somehow destroying their yard. I don’t want my dog on their chemical laden lawns. No I don’t.
I too have been struggling with this issue being on a corner lot. I have posted signs which the honest ones respect. But there are always some that don’t! On a positive note, I have noticed many dog owners actually training their dog to walk by their side and not even try to do their jobs on people’s properties. You would think that a good dog owner would have them do their jobs before their walk and not take them for a walk to do their jobs. Thank you to the responsible dog owners! I too have been slowly replacing the grass on my property with gardens. 🙂
But having the dog do its “business” before the walk would mean picking it up out of your own yard/garden. I’m occasionally annoyed enough to wonder if that isn’t the POINT: Let somebody else do it. At which point I kinda lose my (mild to begin with ) liking for random dogs.
But it isn’t just dogs. Cats can be as bad. My neighbor’s cat insists on using my front garden bed and the sand I paid for to fill in between bricks for his litter box. I stuck my hand into a slimy pile of his poop. Toxoplasmosis anyone? (I’d caught him using the area before.) I approached my neighbor about the issue and told her I’d be very willing to purchase a litter box to put on her covered back porch for the cat to use. She said she didn’t want to do this. Well, gee, I guess it’s okay that I stick my hand in your cat’s poop periodically? Really? You’re okay with that? The same issue happened with my boyfriend’s veggie bed. Over time, he gathered the poop in a bag and gave it back to the neighbor who owned the cat. His neighbor wasn’t too happy about it.
FYI – Yesterday while walking my pooch, she pooped in front of a business and I’d forgotten a bag. I came home, got a bag then drove back and picked up the poop. It’s not impossible to pick up poop after the fact.
Wish to be a guest ranter if that is OK.
When I was in my late 20’s I moved to a neighborhood to raise children in a quiet place. (I am now 85!) But the morning dog walkers left packages on my hell stripe and front lawn. These were mainly men walking before work while wife finished getting ready for work. I didn’t want my children playing where the piles were nor was I to happy about having to survey my grounds before letting them out. (We could let our kids out back then!) One man in particular came every morning and occasionally we would chat….I would mention the ‘problem’ I had with dog walkers in general. Not taking my notes to heart he continued. So, my husband suggested I try something else…what he didn’t have a clue about. But I had recently purchased a lawn sprinkler! And my outside bib had a cutoff in the basement in the front. Thus, one day as this inconsiderate gentleman came with his dog I stood waiting for the dog to squat and when he did I turned on the bib full force. Both jumped and wet scooted. Apparently, he thought it was on a timer, so he came a little later next day. Wet again! The next day earlier, wet again. Fourth day he walked the dog across the street! I later heard he walked in the other direction.
When we bought our first house and I found dog piles 10 or 15 feet into our yard, that made the decision for me of where to start planting the native roses I wanted to introduce to our scorched, sandy “lawn.” Right near the front edge. It doesn’t necessarily keep them off the very edge, but dogs aren’t inclined to roam more than a foot or two off the pavement so definitely it cuts down on their squatting. I honestly haven’t seen a pile in our yard in years.
Love this post. It really his home with my front yard and all the neighborhood dogs and their rude owners. I finally decided to take out the lawn after my neighbor let her 6 huge foster dogs poop, not on her lawn but just mine and of course the lawn always died in those spots. We would re plant those area and then she would let them do again until I said enough. It took me 6 years to get the Native Kansas plant effect but I wouldn’t change a thing. Now the only problem I have is the 12 year old boy that lives down the street and jumps into the pea gravel on his way home from school. It’s a problem but not like the dog do.
Maybe dog poop is at the heart of the cliched American white picket fenced yard.
Great article. My immediate neighbors are responsible pet owners and keep their pets on their own property, secured by physical or electronic fencing. They deal with their pet’s poop, on their own property, like a responsible pet parent. It amazes me that other pet owners think it is permissible to let their pets “poop and pee” on sidewalks, hellstrips, and private property. So inconsiderate.
We installed a woodland garden along our driveway and along the street in front of our house. Dog owners from other areas of the community routinely walk their pets on our road because of the “pretty houses and gardens”. Some allow their pets (on retractable leases) to roam through my garden, trampling on ferns, native wildflowers, etc. When confronted, one lady told me that “dogs are apart of nature” and her that it is no “big deal” if her dog enjoys walking through my garden. Even if the dog isn’t pooping, it is trampling on my plants.
How infuriating! First reply might be to discuss the meaning of “PRIVATE property”. The next might be to arm yourself with aerosol food dye (used to color cake frosting) and spraying the pooch cherry red. No harm to the animal but quite a headache for the owner.
Dogs can’t read.
Diapers on the dogs would be a solution. but idoes not appear that this crowdwould be enabled,
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I’ve grown tired of fighting with inconsiderate dog walkers. I’ve confronted them about letting their dogs relieve themselves and I’ve tried signs (but this only makes it worse… trust me). Signs just aren’t worth it and I’ve heard nasty comments about them from the walkers. I’ve also found plastic bags of poop so considerately left on the sidewalk. Frankly, I’d just given up. One thing that seems to work is talking to dog walkers and asking their dog’s name, admiring how beautiful/handsome they are, and asking if I can pet the dog. I know we can’t always be out in our yards to see bad behavior, but when we can it seems to make for better neighbor relationships.
Credit where doo: Those of us encouraging people to become better stewards of Mother Earth by shrinking lawns and gardening more ecologically (your yard looks great, Hannah!) now have an effective if unexpected (and smelly) ally. Not just the hounds and their mounds, but the louts (guys mostly, Letitia says, er, no surprise?) who don’t pick up. Thanks for sharing your hopeful perspective, Hannah, and may this encourging green outcome from some discouraging browns inspire us all.
I did public gardens at the Port of Ilwaco for many years till recent retirement. The the gardens were curbside beds AKA hellstrips. I found that the favorite poop spot for dogs of a certain size was right on top of assorted santolinas, one of my repeated plants. Most unsightly, plopped right on top. Not sure if it was stray dogs or a large dog on a leash with whom a local walked by the gardens, but that dog certainly had an affinity for santolina.