Welcome to the forum! I'm sure everyone will chime in with suggestions; you have a great space to work with. Sorry I'm not any help but wanted to welcome you to the group! :)

Hiya Kplum! Wanted to welcome you to Oklahoma. Your lot looks promising. Nice area to work with. Start working with the dog now. Buy some treats. Make him/her feel as if she doesn't have free roam when she's in the yard, but must keep and eye on your command. Now that the weather is warmed up, go with him/her all the time on a leash. Take him/her in the same exact routine (areas) every time. He/she will know what ya want. I know it's a pain, but it'll be worth it later when you're multi-tasking with the garden and struggling with him/her wanting to "help". lol

I'm not much of a flower girl or a landscaper, but it's always good to start composting early.

blessings
bon

Do you know what sort of soil you have? The type of soil you have, how well it drains (or doesn't drain, as the case may be) and your annual average rainfall (20"? 30"? 40"? more than that?" all are factors that would help us recommend what would grow well for you.

As for plants that can be grown safely around dogs, that's gonna be a huge challenge. First, you'll need to start out with a list of what you want to plant, and then you'll have to Google and do your research and try to figure out if the plants you want are known to harm dogs if eaten or chewed.

The ASPCA maintains lists of plants that are known to be dangerous to dogs, but it is not an all-inclusive list. It merely is a list of plants that have been reported to them as being dangerous. Still, it is a good starting point.

I've always gardened with dogs, but for the safety of our dogs, they have an enclosed dog yard that is fenced off from the rest of the yard and nothing grows inside their dog yard that would be considered harmful to them. If we are out in the yard, I occasionally let them out of the dog yard to roam the larger yard, but only because I am out there with them and can keep an eye on them.

Some dogs are diggers and will dig up anything and everything you plant. Other dogs could care less and never dig. Some dogs chew. Some dogs try to chew but what they end up doing is pulling up everything you planted so they then can chew on it.

At times, when I planted stuff in our yard before we had built the fenced-in dog yard, I would put cages of woven wire fencing around newly planted shrubs and trees to prevent the dogs from digging them up. Did I think it looked really lovely? No, of course not. What it did, though, was allow new trees and shrubs to become firmly rooted into the ground before the dogs could dig them up. After the first year, I removed the cages and the dogs never dug up any of those plants.

Our dogs were pretty big-time into digging in their younger years, particularly from the puppy stage until they were 4 or 5 years old. Now that they're older and calmer, they don't dig as much as they used to. We had one dog, Mrs. Jeeves, who made it her personal mission to rip into and scatter every bag of anything (peat moss, pine bark fines, cow manure, mushroom compost, soil-less planting mix, etc.) she could find but she didn't bother plants. So, if your dogs are older and more settled down, they might not bother your plants much at all.

Be advised that if you use organic fertilizers like blood meal and bone meal, your dogs will smell them and will dig up everything in sight looking for the source of that smell.

I noticed that a lot of the plants on your list flower at various stages in their lives. I think you might want to consider vitex agnus-castus which blooms in summer and has lovely blue flowers. It is very drought tolerant and will grow in almost any soil, as will crape myrtles.

If you have well-drained sandy or sandy loam soil, I think that everything on your list would grow well for you, but I haven't compared the plants you listed to lists of plants known to harm dogs. Lavender needs really well drained soil, so keep that in mind if you have soil that has a lot of clay in it.

I'll link the ASPCA dog problem plant list. When you click on the link and go to that page, you'll notice you can ask for a 'toxic' list or a 'non-toxic' list, or you can search for individual plants using their search feature.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: ASPCA Toxic and Non-toxic Plants For Dogs

Thank you all for your suggestions thus far.

When compiling my previous list, I tried to do as much research as possible in the dog-safety department. I look pretty consistently at the ASPCA website, and looked at others to check the plants listed. It gets tough when plants have numerous names... another addition to the challenge.

A bit of info on my pups: I own a retired racing greyhound who is 3 yrs old, and a crazy whippet who is 18 months. I was warned with the whippet that he may do a little digging. He witnessed his mum digging small holes to eat the soil and grass, so it was likely he would do the same... and he does. Sighthounds (greyhounds, whippets, Italian Greyhounds, etc.) are 'grazers' anyway. While I'd like to be able to fence off, or put wiring around my plants, it's unfortunately not feasible for my particular situation. Sighthounds are sprinters, and when they get going, my grey can reach 40mph, and my whippet can reach 35mph. Wiring creates an additional hazard, and my yard is too small to fence off. However, we will not be in this home for forever, and have hopes of moving in the next 10 years to a house with some land. I'm going to keep the tips of fencing-off and wiring-off in mind for the future.

Being a lover of plants and being a lover of animals doesn't always go hand-in-hand. However, I'm willing to find out what works through some trial-and-error. From past experience, my pups will leave marigolds, lavender, and blue daze alone. They will chew/destroy lemon verbena, small roses (thorns or not), and small red bud trees.

Dawn, I will certainly need to do more research on my annual rainfall, soil, etc. I know the soil in my area has a lot of clay. I've never had sitting water in my yard, but I'm not sure that tells me much. While I can amend my soil to a certain extent, I can not amend for how far down tree roots reach. :/

-KPlum

P.S. love the chaste tree idea... there are many beautiful ones in our neighborhood.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pins of dog-friendly plants

Crepe myrtle would be good. I have no experience with the one you named. Some crepe myrtles are dwarf and grow slowly. With dogs it might be good to get one that will take off. Once it makes past the first couple of years the dogs can't hurt it and you have room for one that grows big.

I bought some of the new quince on sale last year but mine are too small yet to know much about them. I have some quince from years ago. They don't grow that fast but they are pretty tough, it flowers in spring and not a bad looking green shrub the rest of the year. .
That may be a greatly improved forsythia. Forsythia has its place. My mother had a hedge row of it at the bottom of her hill and it was pretty every spring with no care what so ever. But forsythia is kind of an awkward shrub and the spring bloom is all it has going for it. Crepe myrtle on the other hand can have some fall color, summer bloom and sometimes attractive bark or trunk.

The improved althea that are sterile like Diana are nice shrubs.

Just to reiterate what Dawn said about dogs and organic fertilizer, my dog ate 15 pounds (that is not a typo) of tomato tone last summer. Two weeks later, he tore down a section of garden fence to get to the fish heads I had buried at the bottom of the raised beds. I would LOVE to use blood meal, but can't even imagine how that would go. Gardening with dogs is not always fun, but it can be done. Good luck!

What I want to know is if the Tomato-Tone made the dog grow????

When I use blood meal, the vultures circle the garden for days thereafter.

I am relieved our dogs are all getting old and lazy. They don't make nearly as much of a mess of things as they used to. Young, hyperactive dogs can be hard on lawns and gardens.

I have had great luck with grasses (pampas as well as pink muhly). Also a lob lolly will be fast growing evergreen. I have several chaste trees and privet (varigated) bushes that do great on my W side and they really are spectacular anywhere in the garden as long as they are not too close to the house as they are both fast growers. Are your dogs diggers or chewers? I have 4 and none of them really mess with the plants other than urinating on them which has only partially damaged some of my phytonias. Good luck. Always fun to start with a clean slate. Good luck and happy gardening!

Ornamental grasses are great. I like giant Miscanthus. I am sorry I planted giant reed grass so watch that one. Grasses are inexpensive, grow fast and look nice most of the year. I do what you might call sheet composting in place but I had this trash can where I put kitchen scraps and did not turn it or do it correctly. My Honey found a nasty slimy looking gray lump in there. I tried to get it away from him but he ran and ate it as fast as he could and spent the night at the emergency vet. Ever since then we do the tummy check. The vet had a list of things like abdomen - soft. So I poke the abdomen and declare it soft ever since.