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Landscape Design

Planning 90 foot fence border garden

6 years ago

Hi all. We put in a privacy fence when we moved in to our house. The back fence line is 90 feet long. There is only a single small Japanese maple at one corner and the rest is empty. Our dogs run the fence with the neighbors dog barking and growling and try and dig.

So with all of that we want to plan a garden bed along the full length of the fence line and am looking for some help with the garden bed edge design and what plants to include.

We are in Kentucky, zone 6b. The fence is partial shade (about 4-5 hours of good sunlight), faces north. We dont want a straight line garden bed, some visual appeal. With the issues with the dogs we want substantial shrubs to keep them off the fence line and no raised beds or they will be able to jump over. A mix of perennials and evergreens. Would love some color and blooms.

We would love your help!! Any ideas???

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Comments (3)

woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
6 years ago
What breeds of dogs - both yours and the neighbours....?

Dogs will be dogs - running the fenceline is inevitable behavior that your garden needs to accommodate - if there's not a path along the fence, they will make one whatever you do! The first order of business is to do some training - the all-purpose command 'Leave it!' is one I find useful and dogs learn and respond to quickly - it means 'whatever you're doing, stop it!' Barking at the neighbour''s dogs is a Leave it! moment that works well here - both our current and previous dog(s) and guest dogs when we dog-sit for friends and family know it and respond to it.

The next order of business is to plan your garden with paths to accommodate their needs - paths along the fencelines are a priority. In my experience dogs are inclined to literally follow the path of least resistance - with some limits.... If the paths mostly take them where they want to go, they will usually stay on the path when it deviates a bit from purely following the fenceline as long as their other needs are met. For instance in our 'wet corner' area, the path keeps them away from the wettest area, but there is a place at the edge, near the compost bins behind the shed, where they can sniff noses with a neighbour's dogs. Similarly, on the other side of the shed the path is not against the fence because there is a small bank of earth against the fence and the path runs along the base of that. The plantings there are low and the dogs can see and sniff noses with the small terriers behind us. They all are inclined to bark there but Leave it! - even said from the house - is sufficient to quiet all of them!

Here is the general plan of our backyard:

(The red Xs indicate trees removed a few years ago...) The rectangular lawn has a path all around it - it has become a popular dog racetrack :-)

(Neither of those dogs are ours - one is a guest we were dog-sitting and the other belongs to a neighbour up the street....)

Here's a view of the backyard in spring (mid-May last year) from a people's perspective :-)

Your backyard proportions are different than mine but maybe there are ideas from here worth incorporating into yours. The keys are to (a) train your dogs, (b) consider and realistically accommodate their needs as well as yours!
shadowsarah
Original Author
6 years ago

We discourage running the fence and they will walk away when we call them off but the neighbors dog instigates and is mostly outdoors. We have pits and they have a husky who gets no exercise or attention. We do not want them to have access or a path to or along the back fence. Which is why we are looking to create a garden border with larger shrubs and trees.

Your garden is very pretty. The type of bordering that I’m drawn to is in the photo. But I’m not sure how to replicate that across such a length without it looking tired.

Thanks for your thoughts!
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biondanonima (Zone 7a Hudson Valley)
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How much depth do you want to allocate to these beds? Do you want beds just along the 90' stretch or around the entire perimeter?

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