Sure you can fence your flowers in or space wooden stakes throughout the bed, but who wants to do all of that!?

These imaginative dog owners have come up with some creative ways of keeping dogs out of the flower bed that don’t require too much money or work. Please be sure to share your thoughts or other ideas in the comments section below.

Bury Balloons

We got this idea from the Mississippi SPCA. The idea is to blow up balloons and bury them in the flower bed that you’re concerned your dog or cat will dig in. When the animal starts to dig in that part of the yard, the balloon pops, and scares the dog, hopefully conditioning him or her to fear your flower bed. I don’t know, SPCA, we don’t mean to ‘burst your bubble’, but we’re skeptical.

Grow Thorny Decorative Plants

Okay, this one sounds fairly reasonable and who doesn’t like roses? The idea is to construct beds that include plants like thorny blackberry, rose bushes, or razor sharp osage orange. The latter plant is fast growing and will have to be kept pruned to prevent it from getting out of hand, but this shrub’s thorns are so sharp that hedge rows were once planted to contain livestock. It’s like living barbed wire and the fruit, though inedible, is a natural bug repellent and has a delicious citrus smell.

Pour Ammonia Around the Bed

Ammonia, a natural source of the plant fertilizer nitrogen, stinks to high heaven, but used in sparing amounts will boost plant growth and hopefully deter dogs and cats. A few gardeners report that some strategically placed coffee filters, soaked in ammonia, smells repugnant enough to dogs and cats to keep them out of the bed. Anyone out there tried this?

Install a Motion Detector

There are scores of these on sites like Amazon. The one below has the best reviews and pricing compared to the others we know about. Has anyone tried one of these? We’d love your feedback. Mind, the one shown below isn’t solar powered, so you’ll have to install it near an outlet.

Lay Chicken Fencing Over the Bed

This works great if you are installing a perennial bed that won’t require additional digging throughout the year. Plant your bulbs, seeds, and small plants, then carefully lay the chicken wire over the surface of the bed making sure to pull any tender plant stems through the screen. You can then mulch over the chicken wire with wood chips. It gives us no end of satisfaction to watch our dog try and then fail miserably to make it past this wire barrier.

Ideas We Rejected

We skipped any chemical deterrent that wasn’t wholly natural. We also passed on the cayenne pepper and mothball ideas. Cayenne pepper has been known to seriously irritate the eyes of dogs and cats and mothballs are small enough for young curious dogs/kittens to play with/eat.