Carol, knowing what breed of dog you have might help elicit the most appropriate suggestions. I don't believe you said you didn't walk your dog. It's perfectly normal for people to want to have their dog outside with them without being able to run away into danger, and to be able to 'use the facilities' without a person having to go outside with them. Barrels do not taper toward the bottom, so would provide solid fence sections with no gap at the bottom like the shape of a traditional flower pot. There are individual pots that do not taper, and rectangular planters that could be purchased, or you might enjoy making some, IDK. I would probably use evergreen shrubs, like Gardenia, Osmanthus, Azalea, Rosemary, with other plants tucked between. Knowing how much light this area should get, and what time of day, and your garden zone, would help with more specific suggestions. You can find your zone by typing your ZIP code in the box on this page. Stored in your profile (link to edit here) it will show up next to your name automatically when you post.

Perhaps this country went astray the past twenty five or so years or were brainwashed in most areas.Everything is a big deal 90% of the people who have gas guzzling pickups no more need a truck than a hole in their head.They all moved to the suburbs from town and ASSUMED a truck was part of the package actually most never need to go to the land fill or recycling center.We do alot of pruning every year and rather than take the trimming away I find spots in the yard over the snow fence behing some evergreens and make a brush pile the birds love it for shelter and it quicker than you would think breaks down in a natual way so r their is room for next years branches.Same idea with leaves ,grass clippings kitchen scraps and dog poop.No need for bins and formal composting equipment.I have areas around the property that need rehab thus I start a new temporary composting area.Recently I realized a large Blue Spruce of mine was on the verge of malnutrision so it is my lastest compost area if my wife complains the paper etc is un sightly I cover with a little bark mulch and dress it up being in front of the house one would never guess it was a compost pile.Add some red wiggler worms and away you go.The Blue Spruce by the way is looking great.

It depends on your climate (where be you?) but in many locations bed rot is pretty trivial. Some places it's wild! I've had boards in the ground for four years (when I redid everything) that show NO sign of rot. They're plain old ordinary untreated Douglas Fir dimensional lumber held together with plain old nails. Polyethylene will break down in the soil but It's glacially slow. Toxic plasticizers like the recently damned pthalates are not usually added to polyethylene. It's about as non-toxic a plastic as you'll find. YMMV

Well in the previous discussions several folks pointed out that this is very poor quality soil (backfill) and that you will need to mix in quite a bit of good compost and quality soil. So is that done? Not sure what you mean by "cover"? You mean just lay on the soil? You are planning make a raised bed here but have you built the bed yet? Filled it and with what. If the area still looks exactly like it did in this photo from 2 months back then you are falling way behind as it will take some time to get the bed built and the fill hauled in. As for around the bed once it is actually built and filled and ready to be used then you can simply spread wood mulch chips all around the outside of it. Dave