# My Lawn is becoming a mud pit help!



## slechner (Sep 5, 2008)

We live in Southwestern Ontario where we have had a mild winter. Boomer is nearly four and as soon as he hears the neighbour's rotweillers outside, he runs up and down the fence non-stop. My grass is becoming one big mud pit on both sides of our lawn. I am not overly meticulous about the yard but it looks horrible. Any suggestions?


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## mylissyk (Feb 25, 2007)

I'm looking forward to hearing suggestions too, my yard is in the same condition.


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## FeatherRiverSam (Aug 7, 2009)

How about tearing up the lawn by the fence and filling the space with your choice of pea gravel with a nice border?

Pete


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

If the grass is ruined by the fence, you can turn to landscaping. Put pea gravel, wood chips, and shrubs in. 

Or bring him inside when the rotties are out.


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## newport (Aug 8, 2011)

I live in the Pacific North West. Our yard is one big mess of moss, mud, downed trees and bushes from a huge ice storm a month ago. Thanks to Lola is is even worse..... do not feel bad. Come the warm weather hopefully when things get dry again, we can do some clean up. It is just a muddy mess right now with all the rain. Hang in there.


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## slechner (Sep 5, 2008)

the pea gravel might be a solution as long as he doesn't eat it. He has been known to eat grass on occasion. It would probably look good. Thank you for the advice everyone.


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## sdain31y (Jul 5, 2010)

We had a landscaper come for the front yard and when he looked at the bad, he said, pointblank "you can have a beautiful, landscaped lawn or a dog!". That about sums it up. We opted for lots of natural beds with pine straw, leaves and pine bark mulch and the larger area is covered in tons (I know I wheelbarrowed all of it) of river rock. Works well and they don't get all muddy or tear up the lawn. They do run tracks around the edge of the yard where the beds are when they do their zoomie laps. That used to be where the azealas grew to the ground, but now we have more like azeala trees so they can run under them, but its a look. We go behind them and even out the berms, but it doesn't look too bad. It is amazing how fast they break down the pine straw and how often we add to it, but its fairly inexpensive.


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## Merlins mom (Jun 20, 2007)

sdain31y said:


> We had a landscaper come for the front yard and when he looked at the bad, he said, pointblank "you can have a beautiful, landscaped lawn or a dog!". That about sums it up. We opted for lots of natural beds with pine straw, leaves and pine bark mulch and the larger area is covered in tons (I know I wheelbarrowed all of it) of river rock. Works well and they don't get all muddy or tear up the lawn. They do run tracks around the edge of the yard where the beds are when they do their zoomie laps. That used to be where the azealas grew to the ground, but now we have more like azeala trees so they can run under them, but its a look. We go behind them and even out the berms, but it doesn't look too bad. It is amazing how fast they break down the pine straw and how often we add to it, but its fairly inexpensive.


we've been thinking about using river rock (small stones) in our backyard too. Grass just isn't going to work....ever. LOL! Do you have any pics of your yard that you'd like to put up? Trying to get a visual of what our yard would look like.


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## Maggies mom (Jan 6, 2006)

Put grass seed down then cover in very thick layers of Straw.....


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## sdain31y (Jul 5, 2010)

Sure............. its amazing how great the pictures look. This was last Memorial day but it still looks good and we still like it. We bought an indoor/outdoor rug for the dogs to lay on and they love it.


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## Vanfull (Jan 20, 2012)

Wr have rock going around our house. My husband and I have been talking about adding rock for at least a few feet out from the deck in the high traffic zone because I have cleaned up way to much mud in the last month and my yard looks horrible too.


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## Merlins mom (Jun 20, 2007)

sdain31y, it looks really good! Thanks for posting those! I see you have a lot of trees (we do too) and was wondering how leaf clean up is with the stone. Did you use a leaf blower? 

Looks great!!!!


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## LibertyME (Jan 6, 2007)

we ended up making a boardwalk along the most traveled raceways...so far so good...


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## sameli102 (Aug 23, 2009)

My concern with pea gravel along the fence + a dog running back and forth would mean pea gravel scattered all through the grass and getting hit with the lawn mower. In some areas I have used the mini pine bark nuggets, some places call them "fines", but they work pretty nicely. I use them in the dog pen and keep the dogs confined to that area whenever the ground is wet.
My back yard is going to be completely rejuvenated this spring. Have to get creative.


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## sdain31y (Jul 5, 2010)

Yes, we use a blower to blow off the leaves sometimes, much to Darby's chagrin. A wide push broom actually works better and we sweep the leaves off. That works almost better and it relevels the rock. Darby likes that better too. Using larger river rocks allows you to blow the rocks - pea gravel will blow around with the blower. And yes, we have landscape timbers edging and occassionally the throw rocks into the beds when they runa nd we have to sit and pick them back out, but not so much its a major problem. Of course, we don't have grass anywhere so there's no worry about the mower, but when we did have grass I wouldn't mow with them in the back anyway - too much risk from a projectile. We've added pine bark nuggets to the beds too, but have to watch the pups since they like to munch on them too..............


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## Dexter12 (Feb 10, 2012)

I'm having the same problems here in Southwestern Ontario. Dex was out for a while today and our yard is just pure mud right now so he was filthy when we brought him in. Dex gets muddy from just going out to go to the bathroom!


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## Dexter12 (Feb 10, 2012)

I mean Northwest^


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## Maggies mom (Jan 6, 2006)

We sectioned a place off and added gravel, we use this when its raining out, until the grass grows in...


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