Put a dog height electric fence around some of the area. Once he has bumped into that a couple times he will learn not to touch a wire. Then just string a wire around the rest. He won't know that part is not electrified.
In 1997 we built a new house. After moving in we discovered the neighbor had pit bulls. They were friendly and we were not concerned until we saw one try to get one of our cats. We immediately put electric fencing around the top of our fence. After that the cats never went over the fence, or at least I never saw them do so.

Omg!!! I have one of those too! How cute is he? What is his name? Heres mine, his name is diesel!

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I had the same problem. He eats anything and everything! I plan on putting up a cheap folding decorative fence 2 1/2 ft tall and giving myself the back third of the yard for my own space. When he was a pup last summer he could squeeze thru the fence, but now im very sure he cant! I think a low fence could be jumped, mine does that. i think the fence will be helpful and train him to keep out. This spring i notice my dog has calmed down a bit, and he might be ok but my winter sown seedlings wont stand a chance. So fence it is.

I think fence would be a good temporary solution, and the plants can grow thru it and over. You might not even notice it after a while, and maybe he will think its still there even after you take it out. Good luck! Id love to hear more about your little guy!

he is cute.

Why do I always think of Winston Churchill when I see one of those?! :-)

I don't have any personal experience with bulldogs but we do dog-sit a variety of dogs so our backyard is set up to accomodate the needs of the dogs. The main thing we've done is put lots of paths - and put them where the dogs want to travel. Patrolling the perimeter is high on their list of needs as are routes to visit with the neighbours' dogs through the fence. We rarely have any danmage beyond skid marks and launch gouges on the paths from the dogs racing about. Those are easily raked out. I doubt that a bulldog is going to do much racing about but pay attention to what his normal travel routes are and where he visits regularly - dogs are creatures of habit. Then adjust your garden to allow him to go where he needs to go and that will minimize damage.

Next to gardens, dogs are our favorite things. Here is some of our 'dog pack' and you can see more in the link below. Only the little Lhasa Apso is ours; the rest are visiting or Misty's friends in the neighbourhood.
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Here is a link that might be useful: The dog pack...

I've got the same problem. My 8 year old Malamute is pretty good. He digs in one bed (trying to get the chipmunks underneath the deck). We just rescued a 4 year old Siberian Husky and she loved to dig. She can hear the moles under the ground and pounces around and digs little holes. The lawn looks like a battlefield. I had to change the closure on the potager because she broke into it and started eating the compost. I'm going to have an interesting year...

Here is a link that might be useful: my blog with pictures of the dogs

what about using Piss off plants? they are said to deter cats and dogs.

Here is a link that might be useful: Richter Herbs

I put up short decorative fences bought at Lowe's around garden beds that had the fragile delicate plants...most of my "cottagey" stuff. It kept her out and she still had plenty of room to roam through the sturdier beds. Bulldogs are so lovable! Here is a pic of my dear little bulldozer bull-dozing in one of her favorite places on the bench by the Niobe clematis and the climbing New Dawn rose. Sadly she passed away almost a year ago, last March 16th. I still miss her so much!
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But, they're so cute! :-) I have no solution for you, but I love the dog photos!

My greyhound is so prissy, she has never stepped on a single flower - but she does love to sniff them. She stays on the paths and has never dug up anything. That's why I call Charm my "Gardening Greyhound." She doesn't roll in disgusting stuff (or bark for that matter, though she's capable). Greyhounds are just different.

That said - she made her own "race track" in the meadow, using the trees as "track posts" for the turns. No damage to any trees, but the track is now about a foot deep into the ground from the daily turns. So, a greyhound will build a track out of open grass.

iris, so sorry. How old was she when she passed? That photo is darling.

I've never had dogs dig in my flower beds either - not yet that is! I may be adopting again soon, so I'll knock on wood.

I feel your pain! I have two galloping gardeners (mother/son tag team) who not only trample, but dig. Our stone wall may be in danger of imminent collapse as the idiots have completely dug out behind it in several spots-darn rodents must be burrowing there. I am amazed that they have dug out so much dirt and it seems to have disappeared, so I don't even have enough to refill the space. Ugh. In anticipation of spring, I bought some wire femcing and metal posts to put around various areas. I am hoping to train them to run AROUND rather than through these spots. Haven't put the fences up yet. I am not hopeful, however-son has puppy who loves to come romp with ours-building a mongrel horde to conquer us all. lol.

Schoolhouse, our bulldog, whose name was "Iris" hence my user name! would have been 12 last Sept, which is old for a bulldog, I'm told. She passed away peacefully in her sleep from what we are not sure...bulldogs are so stoic. We had a male, Winston, who died in 2007 from cancer. I've said that some of the happiest memories I have are of gardening out in the back during our hot summer evenings with the dogs playing and entertaining me to make me laugh...it doesn't get any better than that...dogs and gardening give us so much!

I love all of the pictures!! Lilyfinch, my bulldog's name is Blade, and he was a successful show dog whose career was cut short (literally) by a medical problem necessitating neutering (prolapsed urethra--he almost bled out). Diesel is adorable! I have to believe he's a lot bigger now.

Woodyoak...you have quite a pack there! Nice of you to have the neighborhood dogs over. We've been having play dates with the pug next door. She runs circles around my bulldog!

Iris...so sorry to hear about you losing your Iris. 12 is a good age for a bulldog. What a lovely garden you have. I don't blame Iris for choosing that spot for a nap!

llhowland--very cute dogs! Your malamute reminds me of my brother's dog who passed away around Christmas. So sad. I enjoyed peeking at your blog!

Cameron...as I read your post I was thinking that I should have considered a greyhound until you mentioned her self-constructed racetrack. I don't have room for that! LOL.

Thanks so much for the suggestions. More than anything, what I got from this post is that the love of gardening and the love of dogs are not mutually-exclusive!

Here's one more pic of my two little garden wreckers together. The six year old likes to throw balls in the middle of things and trample through to get them. He also loves planting things, so I hope someday it'll click that he shouldn't stomp on the flowers. LOL. This picture also gives a good perspective on why it's so hard for Blade to "tiptoe through the tulips"--he's wide and low!

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Thanks again!

Lisa

Not exactly a bulldozer, but even little beagle feet can do a number on emerging perennial shoots! I use a lot of foot or so high, coated wire fencing cut to diameter of emerging plants forming a protective circle. It also doubles as semi-support for taller plants. This comes in rolls of 20 feet +/-, is easily cut w/wire cutters and shapes well.

Also have cut down tomato cages to three rings w/short legs just to define boundaries and that seems to work too.

My first veggie garden was necessarily located smack dab in the middle of my back lawn and my (then) 100+ lb. on-the-loose German Shepard presented quite a challenge. Working only w/what was available, I pounded in tall dowels at each corner and ran string between them. It actually worked and he never trampled the garden!

The pics on this thread are great!

Why do I have a million stakes? Blackie gets hot. He is an old dog, a pretty good boy but when he gets hot he sits on hostas. The sour look is because of the suspicious noise the camera makes. {{gwi:642583}}

He's trying to hatch hostas. He looks like a pretty good boy.

Oh the look on Blackie's face is priceless! Zigzag, the wire fencing and cages sound like great ideas, too.

Thanks so much.

These dogs are so precious! I always love posts where people show off their animals. Lisa, i hope you got some ideas, but im sure if nothing a big smile was brought to our faces!

I come back every day to look at the dogs. They are all beautiful, but baby Diesel caught red pawed with his hole in the flower bed makes me smile every time. I have five animals (2 are cats) and they are a lot of trouble but they are worth it.

I have some of those too! The brown dog, gunner, he's actually a goat in disguise. He ate a new apple tree the day after I planted it, he picks the cherry tomatoes off the plants, and loves the compost pile! You would think we don't feed him. Every bush I try to plant disappears, I was just noticing that my blueberries I planted last summer are gone!

And the moles... don't even get me started! He will sit on full point on a mole hole until that mole peeks his head out, next thing you know he's got it in is mouth and playing with it. Luckily for the moles he's a bird dog and has a soft mouth. Not so lucky for my yard, it looks like a blown up mine field thanks to gunner hunting the moles.

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When we had dogs,we fenced off the very bottom section of our backyard,the whole length of the yard and probably 8' or more wide.We put their doghouses down there and everyone that visited thought it was neat and dubbed the area the davis condos,as each of the 3 dogs had their own house.They could run and chase each other all around down there and it was on the edge of the canyon so no one was bothered by them.We let them up in the yard when we were out there,but if they had to go poop or anything,they'd go back down to their own territory.Made it real easy to keep clean as well.

These days we have no animals at all unless you count our tropical fish ,and gold fish.Now we grow fruit trees down there.
Kathi

We have three dogs-a golden, a lab and a border collie - so good bye back yard. They have their favorite spots and I plant around that. We have honeysuckle and Virginia creeper that grows up over the fence and into the flower beds-they make paths through that. They have holes under their favorite trees and shrubs for naps. I have iron fences around some garden plots and raised beds (that they are too lazy to jump up on). Now if DH would be more careful where he throws the ball, there might be some peace in the peaceable kingdom....

How fun to see so many cute dogs! Lisa, I can see you might have a problem with your adorable little 'bulldozer'. For his size he looks to be quite powerful so you might need to do sturdy, but short, fencing to keep him out of the garden beds.

When we had large dogs I used short wire fencing and surprisingly they respected it. They could have walked right over it but didn't. So it depends a lot on the nature of the dog. We've had many over the years and they are all different.

Now we have this little girl who I sometimes call my 'diggy dog'. We're raising her as a dog, not a baby, so let her do doggy things such as dig. However, in the interests of saving my garden and keeping her safe DH made her a 30'x40' fenced dog run. She digs holes wherever she wants there and DH fills them in. This year we'll have to do some overseeding. I am planning to redo the perennial bed which is at one side of her run and will put short decorative fencing there and hope for the best.

Here she is when we were camping. Eventually she had her entire head and shoulders down the hole but this is the only pic I have. Good thing she doesn't mind baths! She gets enough of them.

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Best of luck gardening to all who have 'diggy dogs'!

I use a lot of that wire fencing from Home Depot or Lowes around new beds or if we have a new puppy. I also tend to foam at the mouth when their little paws touch cultivated dirt...pretty soon they figure out that area makes me nuts and they avoid it.

It helps a lot to make sure the lil darlin's have a lot of good exercise and interaction during the day. Bored dogs tend to dig, bark, and chew.

This here is Dozer. My full blooded German Shepherd who loves to bite dirt and toss it in the air. Oh yeah, he catches it too. Dumb dog. Notice the path behind him? Since I have put that path in he has stayed for the most part out of the flower beds. I have two more GSDs. They're not much into eating dirt and use the path on a regular basis too.

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Chary, that's a dog photo I can get excited about. I used to raise GSDs. Awesome dogs. Your guy has a handsome face!

I feel an outbreak of puppy fever coming on....

As my screen name implies, I am the mother to 3 dogs - all over 70 lbs each. Our Great Dane is 160 lbs, our RR/Whippet mix is 75 lbs and our 1 yr old English Lab puppy is 70 lbs and still growing. I had used wooden stakes and deer fencing last year to keep them out when spring came, but it was a pain to put up and down when we needed to weed whack around the bed rocks. So this year I got the 32" high green metal fencing in 10' sections and used that on my main bed. So far this year they have not tried to jump it but it would be easy for the dane to just step over. All 3 are pretty good boys and enjoy hanging out in the yard while I do my garden stuff. The lab puppy has decided he wants to eat fresh mulch, which will be a problem as I try to get everything mulched in April.

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I used to have a fawn Great Dane named Alexis. She was the smartest dog ever and lived to be 11yrs.old., a good age for a Great Dane. She would even carry my box of paints when I went out to paint in the fields.

Your Great Dane is gorgeous!