All this rain has left part of my garden like a quagmire!!! I know it should be paved or properly drained but I cant afford either at the moment. Does anyone know what I can do as a temporary measure. I look after dogs in my home and you can imagine. Six dogs running in and out. More mud inside than out now! I bought a bag of bark chippings and spread that on but it was the little stuff and it stuck to the dog's feet and was worse than the mud. At least I can wipe dirty paws but that stuff treaded all over the house.
Would chucking bags of stones all over do anything? I wondered if they would just sink!!! Its an area about 15 sq foot where it is at its worst. It was a grassy area. HELP, PLEASE.

Hi Annie
A bag or two of gravel would probably be best - it's what I use in some areas of my garden prone to moisture.  I wouldn't use it if I had puppies or dogs prone to mouthing stones.  Don't use the very small pea sized grade - the larger size is best.  It will eventually sink in somewhat, but you can always top it up with another bag.  The stones in the soil will actually help with drainage anyway, and when you have done with them, you can dig them in.
I also had a cobbled area which was very pretty but the dogs found it hard to walk over the rounded cobbles.

> A bag or two of gravel would probably be best

Hi Vanhalla, thank you. Do you mean the white stuff. I have the small shiny coloured stuff in the front garden but we only use that for access. None of my girls do stone mouthing so that isnt a problem. Will go down to the garden centre and see what they have. Brill, ta much.

Dont know how expensive it would be but you can get a type of matting (it has open hole a bit like a door matt) they use it on our golf course when they have patches of mud , they may sell something similar at the garden centre, i sympathise with you wwet mud and dogs are a nightmare belive me i know.

The white stuff is the cheapest, from memory, but not the prettiest.  It's a bit dusty for a start, but it will wash off when it rains, or you can water it with a watering can.
I have mostly flagging in the garden now, and we have used gravel/cobbles in between the flagstones rather than cementing them in so that I can disinfect them and it will drain.  The gravel is at the sides of the garden, off the main paths.  We had an area which we were trying to use as lawn, but it's not really working, so we'll probably gravel/flag that too.  I use raised beds and pots for the rest, to keep the dogs off the plants - it used to be quite pretty and cottagey, but it's gone a bit rampant this year.  Needs an overhaul.

> you can get a type of matting (it has open hole a bit like a door matt)

Interesting!!! I should imagine the dusty white stones will be a cheaper option but worth knowing.
Thank-you

My hubby is a hard landscaper and he suggests a way to keep costs down is to get a ton of scalpings in a dumpy bag from builders merchants
. rake that around as level as poss....then cover in heavy duty polyathene.
Then get one ton of 19mm limestone gravel in dumpy bag...then spread on top of polyathene.
If you buy both bags from builders merchants they will normaly deliver free.
Approx cost for materials £110.
It should last you a long while if done that way.

you could fence the grass off with chicken wire and 2x1 to keep the dogs off the grass and put in a little gate .This will help while you work on the garden and its good for the winter no muddy paws.

Lots of options, thank-you. Scalpings?? Sounds painful!

Dont just use Polathene.
Use semi permeable membrane.
Lay the membrane over the grass. Then lay Basic gravel on top.
General rule of thumb is 1 ton to 10 square meters at 3" deep any less depth and it will move too much and expose the membrane.
.
The best gravel to get is 'flat' gravel, 10mm upwards. Round gravel moves when you walk on it.
If you go to Builders Merchants you wil be able to pick a ton of gravel up for about £40  You can buy decorative gravel but that is £80+ for the same amount.  All builders merchants will have the basic what I call 'builders site' gravel alot cheaper than the decorative stuff.
If you can find membrane like this :-  http://www.groundforcegardening.com/80290/info.php?p=3 Then that is the best stuff.
It lets all water through and supresses 95% of weeds, and doesnt break down like polythene does when the sunlight gets to it.
If you need an edging, you can get 3"x 1" rough sawn treated timber and 'pegs' relatively cheaply from builders merchants.
Builders merchants are places like Jewson's, Jacksons, Travis Perkins etc.

You should be able to do all that approx £100 if its about 10 square meters. Maybe a bit more if you need the wood edging.
Where abouts are you????

HTH :) :) :)
Lea :) :)

Landscape gardener for last 10 years!!!!!

> Landscape gardener for last 10 years!!!!!

Flippin wonderful. Champdogs forum. You put such an obscure question on and you get this!!!! Never fails to amaze me. Thank-you so much. I think I can sort that out. Maybe only need half the quantity. I live 13 miles north of Manchester. Was dreading winter for all the normal reasons but more so because of the soggy garden problem. I live on the side of a hill, which is lovely in the summer but of course we get the run down of water from higher up when it rains. All these ideas are really helpful. Will take a bit from each.
Thank-you so much peeps.

If you live on the side of a hill and have run off water I would be more sure to have more gravel up to 3". If the ground doesnt sok up the water quickly then the gravel will give a lee way to stop the dogs runing in water :) :) :)
Here is a search I did of jewsons
http://www.jewson.co.uk/en/templates/multimap/storeFinderV12.jsp?address_qs=Manchester&rb=town&search=bl
A builders merchants I use alot in my area :) :) :)
If you put 'builders merchant manchester' nto google you will find alot more. ring round and ask for basic 10mm + gravel and price :) :) :)
Lea :) :)

I definitely will do. Thank-you so much. A big weight of my mind.

> A builders merchants I use alot in my area

Did a search and found one only a few miles away. Thanks again. (smiley face!!!!)

LOL.... you must only live round the corner from me then!... have you got horrible claggy clay soil too? (Im just off Rochdale Old road near the hospital).

I did put some drains into my garden, its got a flattish bit then it slopes up to meet a bridlepath and some woodland and the slope carries on up, so i get a lot of run off from that pooling in my garden.

I dug (.... thats a filthy lie, what I did was, with the aid of beer and promise of fire and meat to burn on said fire, bribe and blackmail boys!) two trenches about 2ft/18inches deep at right angles to one another... one at the bottom of the slope and one at right angles running the length of the flat bit.

Filled that to halfway with gravel (the cheap icky brown stuff you buy for mixing into cement to make concrete, not the decorative stuff - got it from wickes about £35 for a hyooge builders sack jobby). Backfilled it with the soil.

Then I got two bags of bark mulch from Greenvale turf which were about £50 each (biggish garden though) and dumped that in the middle of the garden adn spread it around.

That has now mostly broken down and been dug in, but it did prevent a lot of the wet. This year I am going to chuck a ton of gravel and sand on it... cover that with membrane and more expensive woodchip (unless i can find someone wanting rid of an old woodchip equestrian arena surface...) and put a border of half round posts or similar around it... and then if i havent run out of money, flag the rest!

I do feel your pain though.... it is EVIL when they track half the garden into the house and every surface gets covered in mud.. and then it dries and I have drifts of dry dusty dirt all over the place (though.... I am of the opinion housework is evil...)... and things havent improved since the Tibetan Mud ReDistribution Terrier arrived!!!!

We had this in the last house but we used old carpets on the ground then gravel it worked for the 8 years we were there. You could get some old carpets from the dump! My OH saw it on Groundforce and when we moved we had a housefall of the things and used them.
The dog was ok with it and you could see and pick up the pooh. On the front we used dcm and then cut holes for statement plants still looks good when we pass the house years on we were under trees and didnt grow grass but moss!!

What is funny (not) is when OH lets the dog in the car without the seat cover and whilst they were cleanish!! they left deposits of dust eveywhere out of their coats when the said mud dries.. open the door instant dust storm.

Seems to be a country-wide problem. This luscious Isle of ours. Still wouldnt have it any other way really. Driving over the M62 seeing the lush green scenery (can you have lush green scenery???) You know what I mean. Its pretty wonderful but no help when you have six doggies running around. My only "nice" room was my conservatory. All white furniture (I know, I know) and greens and stuff. Boarding very large Golden Retriever boy, had to keep him separate as my long standing phantom prone TT girl just cant abide boys anywhere near her. She wouldnt attack him but barked every time he came within two foot of her and so her pup (bolshy pup) just felt she had to "help). Ended up with lovely green Ikea rug thingy, not wool, now a sort of muddy black. Wasnt worried about white sofa as GR is 14 and very bad on his legs, poor lad BUT, he made close friends with boarded Pug, who needed to be close to him and managed to jump far too high for his little legs and landed on the back of my white sofa. Lovely muddy paw marks all over. You might think am stupid to have white at all with doggies around but have trained mine not to jump up in that room. Luckily, Ikea washable covers so no problem really and pleased GR had Pug as a mate.
Mmm carpet, interesting, will have to look at that one. So many ways around this. Great.

> LOL.... you must only live round the corner from me then

Closer than you think!!!  Rooley Moor!!!! or near Norden if you dont know that. So few tt's around here. Pleased to know at least one other!!!! Your post made me laugh. thanks for that.
Have looked at this digging trenches thingy, I think they are called French drains?. My son offered to "have a go" but if you dont get them just right, they dont work so was a bit worried about that. All that hard work and pinching his time. Might re-think that and let him have a go in the Spring. Too late now. Thanks again.

Yes french drains shingle at the bottom, then sand finally dirt and turf used on sportsfields.

Oh said it was the only hint that in his opinion worked! I watch all the diy garden and house stuff, he's a builder so an EXPERT! cant put up a shelf mind you.
When we moved to Cedar Lodge we have a big garden and flowers, trees, my son still is surprised that we havent covered it in gravel yet!!
Now we have dog holes!! dog toys!! dog runs!! a big dog bowl - doubling as a fish pond, and dog pooh area and we have never been happier.
I drove into work today and the sun was shining, up to our local park behind my office surrounded by pony filelds - yes forgot his lead and he rolled. It was lush and green, we are very lucky to have green areas. Back to the office, in the loo with a rag washing said pony pooh off dog.  Into my office using 3 pet wipes to improve the smell of said cocker.
8:30am and Im exhausted, OH phoned to say we are on a diet - Oh yippee!! Ive got a haircut in about 2 hours, work all day, exercise both dogs (he's driving up to London)What a day.

Will have to have a lie down miself after reading that lol

I love flying into Gatwick and seeing our lovely "lush,green" scenery...

> Closer than you think!!!  Rooley Moor!!!!

Heehee! You can probably hear Errol throwing a stroppy yappy fit from there on a quiet day...!!!

I wasnt *that* careful with my french drains and they definately seem to be working - except when the Deerhound takes it upon herself to dig them up... but we gloss over that bit..

I bought the rubber matting with the holes in at the beginning of the year as some parts of my grass could host a mud wrestling competition. I bought it from ebay and it wasn't all that expensive. I laid it on top of the grass (it did come with pegs but I didnt bother pegging it). It's one of my best buys ever! You do nothing with it...leave it...grass grows over it...you simply run the mower over it as though it wasnt there...no problem! You wouldnt even know the matting was there now, it just looks like lovely healthy grass. After the rain that Scotland has seen in August, it's nothing short of a miracle!

i might invest in some of this - my garden seems to be the lowest point for miles around and really fills up with water (although SO much better since the drains were put in!).

Do dogs not get feet/claws caught in the holes at all? I guess id have to wait now and put it down in spring when the grass starts to grow.. unless i can get some really fast..

> I bought the rubber matting with the holes in

MMM, interesting, will have to have a look at that. Cant believe how many remedies have come up. Thanks so much everyone. x

No....never had a problem with dog claws becoming caught. In fact, one of the areas I have put down the rubber matting is directly in front of the dog runs so the dogs race over that area numerous times a day.

When you first put it down it looks extremely obvious but, without any exaggeration, you would not know that the rubber matting was there at all now. Wish I had known about this stuff years ago to be honest!