The "perfect" ground cover

[originalremfan]

Hi!

I'm looking for suggestions. While I'm looking for a plant-like ground cover, if any of you have had similar situations and were able to find

*any* solution, I'd love to hear about it.

This is probably an impossible request, but here goes anyway.

We have a fenced dog lot, aprox 30' x 20'. Obviously, there are large areas in the lot with no ground cover or grass at all due to the dog running around. This leads to a lot of mud on the dog, and prevents us from putting him in the car as often as we'd like to go to the park, etc.

I would love to be able to find some sort of ground cover to cut down on the mud in his lot. It would have to stand up to high foot traffic from the dog, as well as his excrement.

We live in zone 6 (Virginia) with moderately cold winters & warmish summers. The soil is pretty high in clay, but there is a good bit of top soil to plant in. There's no other vegetation around the lot (trees / etc) and it gets full sun.

Looking through the group archive, it looks like Ajuga or some kind of clover *might* work here?? Would either of those choices hold up? Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Ricky]

Cement.

[David J Bockman]

There are 'vegetative grids' which you may wish to explore as a possibility. These waffle-like grids allow for heavy traffic while still maintaining vegatation and water permeability. Two examples are

(download the pdf file and see the example)

[Doug Kanter]

Does this dog provide any sort of benefit which outweighs all this effort? :-) If so, I'd use astroturf or similar, and be done with it.

[James]

This sounds like a losing effort to me. First you would have to make arrangements for whatever you plant to take hold by removing the dog temporarily. Secondly, the dog will pad around all the time and just wipe out your work in a few days when re-introduced to the pen. Can't think of anything except a vine that puts out runners and keeps going. Ivy?

[Joe Stead]

I would suggest getting a cage for the car so that you can put him into it and not muddy the car near as much. Also, you could give him a cement dog run outside. Then, he'll only get muddy at the park.

[Jane]

Mud and dogs' paws are natural friends. I suggest a large sheet in the back seat of the car, you don't want to use a cage. It works well in mine.