I love animals but as a landscape professional I sometimes wish there weren’t so many dogs on my work sites. Strata title properties are multi-family complexes and they all have dogs. And those dogs must be walked. What happens to the landscape depends on the owners. Bad owners lead to landscape abuse.
Routine maintenance
Imagine taking over a neglected strata site from a weak landscape company. My workers and I were the advanced column, scouting for the following weeks. While line-trimming, my line edger collided with so many droppings I stopped counting. I just stayed vigilant and closed my mouth.
Landscape changes
Sometimes the push for change comes from within the strata. Last week I had to do one project which by itself wasn’t very exciting. It involved digging up turf and installing 2-4″ river rock. Nothing shocking. Just a bit of labour.
The interesting part was that the project push came from the owners of a corner unit. The turf patches were frequented by dogs on a daily basis.
The turf grass can’t handle that much fertilizer and consequently it “burns.” That, in turn, leads to repairs with soil and seed, followed by water applications and re-seeding.
The corner unit owners couldn’t stand the summer heat off-gassing happening right under their windows. So finally, the project was approved and I was the lucky winner.
Here we go
I dug up the turf down to the base and removed the soil. The best stuff from the bottom was re-used on site in far-away corners. The rest of the urine-soaked soil and turf chunks were removed.
Then came the 2-4″ river rocks. They all look one colour but don’t be fooled. Once I hosed them off, they became individuals!
No landscape fabric
Note that since the area is level there was no need for landscape fabric to anchor the rocks. One strata council member had asked me about landscape fabric and weed control. No! That’s old style. Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott dismantled landscape fabric use in her book “How plants work.”
Permanent solution
I love this simple project because it provides a permanent solution to a problem. We replaced dog-urine soaked turf with river rock and that’s how it will stay. No need to keep repairing a small piece of turf that will never get better. Done!
