Question
My question is what would be the best mulch to cover red clay around a pool area? We have nice stamped concrete, (a gray color) sections of grass and several lovely planting areas inside our fence. My problem is we have two dogs that enjoy playing outside, when the larger one goes into the planting areas after any moisture on the ground we have pay prints everywhere on the concrete. We are using pine straw about an 1 inch or 2 inches but we wonder if mulch would be a better solution over the clay?  Would you remove the pine straw or go right over? Or does it really make a difference?  Any advice would help, we love our yard and our dogs but we live in North Carolina and we can't always spray off the sidewalk because it's been so dry here and that just makes more moisture for more prints.
Thanks!


Answer
Hey, Cathy and Don.

It sounds like you're trying to keep the dogs from playing in the dirt and then tracking dirt all over the concrete, right?

I've been through the dog situation all my life with golden retrievers, labradors, Welsh corgis, and a few large mutts thrown in for good measure. In trying to keep them out of my gardens, I've found that rock and pebbles work the best. I use one-person moveable boulders spaced throughout the area, a layer of large rock from 4-12 inches in size spread between the boulders, and then small rock from 2-4 inches in size to fill in the holes that naturally occur between the larger rock. Dogs just don't like to dig in rock.

My second favorite solution is large pine bark mulch, which might be the best for you since you already have pine straw. I'm presuming that the pine straw comes naturally from pine trees in your yard, but if not, if you've chosen pine straw because you like it, then go with what you already like and supplement it with large pine bark mulch. Once you get the large mulch laid, you can spread some smaller bark mulch on top of it, and then some pine straw on top of the smaller bark to give it a more natural look. It shouldn't take the dogs too long to discover that it's just not going to be worthwhile to try to dig down to the soil. However, if they do have a couple of special spots where they like to dig (and what dog doesn't?), then a few strategically placed boulders should solve that problem.

The third solution would be to dig out some soil to about six inches and then fill it with pine straw so that you have a layer about six inches thick.

You don't need to remove what pine straw already is there since it will naturally decompose.

I love your yard and your dogs, too, and I haven't even seen them, but they sound wonderful.