Australian Nursery Data: What Dog Owners Are Actually Planting (And the Hedges That Survive)
By Isaac Olson, Nursery Near Me
Most advice about gardening with dogs focuses heavily on what to avoid—a crucial topic Australian Dog Lover has explored in detail through guides on common plants poisonous to dogs, as well as creative ways to build an engaging sensory garden for your dog. Identifying toxicity matters, but it only answers half the equation: what should you actually plant in its place?
To find out, we looked at real-world buying behaviour. As an online nursery delivering to every mainland state, we analysed 12 months of sales data comprising 3,165 orders and 20,604 plants, cross-referenced with the pet-friendly tags on our site. Pet-friendly turned out to be one of the most requested plant traits in the country, and the specific varieties Australians chose reveal a great deal about how we garden with a dog underfoot.
The Numbers Behind Pet-Friendly Gardens
Almost half of every plant we sent to Queensland carried our pet friendly tag. In New South Wales, the ACT, South Australia and Western Australia it was over a third, and in Victoria about a quarter. In Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT and South Australia it ranked in the top four qualities buyers looked for, behind low maintenance and one or two others. Put plainly, a large share of the country is choosing plants with the dog in mind, whether or not they say so.
What they choose is even more telling. Of the plants carrying our pet-friendly tag, Lilly Pilly Resilience outsold the next plant more than five to one.
![]() |
| A narrow-form Lilly Pilly creating a tight boundary screen—Lilly Pillies were the most planted pet-friendly plants in Australia last year. |
Behind it, in order, came no mow grass (Zoysia tenuifolia), Baby Boomer lilly pilly, Miami crepe myrtle, long leaf lomandra, Silver Falls dichondra, the yellow Banksia rose, Acoma crepe myrtle, Little Gem magnolia and tussock grass, with a narrow lilly pilly and a compact lomandra selection also in the top dozen. Rosemary, liriope, sweet osmanthus, kidney weed, silver carpet, seaside daisy, westringia and an olive tree filled out the top twenty-five.
Three things stand out:
- Structure Over Flowers: The list is dominated by hedging and lawn substitutes, not display flowers.
- Lilly Pilly Dominance: The lilly pillies alone outsold every other pet-friendly plant many times over.
- Built Tough: Nearly everything on it is tough, evergreen, and able to be walked on, run past, or lifted a leg against without much complaint.
Dog owners are not planting a display. They are planting a boundary and a floor.
The Dog-Proof Hedge
A hedge is where a dog and a garden meet most often. It is the fence line the dog patrols, the spot where the neighbour's dog gets barked at, and the first thing a new puppy digs under. Here is what the sales data and our customers' delivery photos say about hedges that cope:
✔️ Lilly Pilly: The obvious first choice and deserves it. It sits on the vet safe list, and Resilience and Baby Boomer both take hard pruning, shrug off a dog's daily patrol along the base, and regrow from the wood if a section gets flattened by a big dog. Resilience is the workhorse for a two to three metre screen; Baby Boomer makes a low hedge a dog can see over.
✔️ Westringia (Coastal Rosemary): The native answer for a lower hedge or a fence-line filler. It is non-toxic, handles salt, wind, and dry spells, and a dog running the same track past it every day does it no harm.
✔️ Callistemon & Tea Trees: Hold a fence line in poor soil, feed the birds, and sit on the vet-safe lists we checked.
✔️ Pittosporum Tobira & Camellia Sasanqua: Give a denser, glossier hedge in cooler or shadier spots, again with no toxicity concern.
✔️ Spacing and protection matter more than the plant. Plant a hedge at the close spacing the nursery recommends rather than stretching it, because a dog will find the gap and turn it into a highway. For the first summer, a low temporary fence of stakes and mesh 30 centimetres in front of the row keeps paws off new roots and lets the plants knit together.
![]() |
| A low temporary mesh barrier keeps paws off young roots during the first summer, giving young hedges time to establish. |
Mulch thickly, because bare soil beside a fence is an invitation to dig, and water deeply and less often so the surface is not permanently damp and interesting.
✔️ Hedges to Avoid: Box (English, Japanese, and Korean box alike are toxic to dogs, despite English box being the sixth most planted line in the country last year); privet; nandina; and ficus hedges or climbing fig, whose sap irritates mouths and skin. If you inherited a box hedge with a new dog, most dogs leave it alone, but a chewer or a puppy is a different matter.
Lawn Substitutes & Groundcovers: What Actually Copes
The groundcovers on the list are not there by accident. A dog wears a track wherever it runs, and the question is never whether a groundcover will be trodden on, but whether it will come back.
✔️ No Mow Grass (Zoysia tenuifolia): The closest thing to a lawn. It forms a dense, slightly mounded mat that a dog can run on, taking a daily patrol better than most fine lawns. It is slow, which is the price of being tough. Plant plugs on a 20 to 25 centimetre grid in spring, water every second day for the first month, and expect the mat to close over in one growing season. Until it closes, keep the dog off with a low mesh fence, or plant in halves if the dog has nowhere else to run.
✔️ Kidney Weed (Dichondra repens): Ideal for shade and the strip beside the house that grass gives up on. It takes light traffic, though it will thin out on a track used daily. Silver Falls, its grey trailing cousin, is a spiller for a wall or pot rather than a footway.
✔️ Silver Carpet (Dymondia margaretae): A flat groundcover for full sun and dry ground. It hugs the soil, tolerates paws well, and shrugs off hot summers, though it sulks in wet feet.
![]() |
| A Kelpie on a mulched path between Lomandra and Westringia—both non-toxic and tough enough for a daily patrol. |
✔️ Tussock Grass & Lomandra: What our customers plant along the fence track itself. A dog runs past a clump rather than through it, and a clump recovers from anything short of digging.
✔️ Managing Lawn Urine Burn: What burns a patch is concentrated nitrogen and salt. Female dogs squatting in one spot or large dogs leave yellow rings, whereas small males watering a fence leave none. Tough groundcovers cope better than fine lawns, but none are immune.
The fix is simple: flood the spot with water within a few minutes to dilute the concentration. Better still, give the dog a designated toilet zone—a metre of mulch or gravel with a post—and guide them there first thing in the morning. Urine-altering supplements are not worth the money.
✔️ Fertiliser Warnings: Feed groundcovers with a controlled-release fertiliser pushed under the mulch. Avoid blood and bone, compost, or open prills (exposed fertiliser pellets scattered on top of the soil). One Adelaide vet's poisoning records put fertiliser, compost, and mushrooms ahead of every plant in the garden for toxicity emergency visits.
Risky Popular Plants & Safe Native Swaps
Our order data shows a clear gap between what dog owners want and what they end up buying. English box was sixth nationally and Japanese box in the top twenty. Agapanthus was in the NSW top ten, an azalea made the Victorian top ten, and climbing fig was ninth nationwide. None of these carry a pet-friendly tag, and all sit on vet avoid lists.
Here are direct, dog-safe plant swaps that perform the exact same landscaping job without the safety risk:
![]() |
| A driveway edged with Lomandra and Liriope—the dog-safe swap for Agapanthus. |
- Instead of Box Hedges: Swap for Baby Boomer lilly pilly, compact westringia, or dwarf Pittosporum tobira.
- Instead of Agapanthus: Swap for lomandra or liriope for the same strappy border lines.
- Instead of Azaleas: Swap for Camellia sasanqua for vibrant spring colour.
- Instead of Climbing Fig: Swap for Star Jasmine on walls and fences.
- Instead of Oleander: Swap for native Callistemon (Bottlebrush).
- Instead of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Brunfelsia): Swap for Plumbago.
- Instead of Hydrangeas: Swap for Plumbago in full sun or Camellia sasanqua in shady corners.
- Instead of Gardenias: Swap for Sweet Osmanthus for a similar rich fragrance.
- Instead of Nandina: Swap for Little John bottlebrush or Baby Boomer lilly pilly.
- Instead of Wisteria: Swap for thornless yellow Banksia rose.
- Instead of Strelitzia: Swap for Cordyline (ensure you avoid Dracaena, which looks similar but is toxic).
- Instead of Toxic Spring Bulbs (Daffodils, Tulips, Hyacinths, Clivia): Swap for kangaroo paw, native violet, seaside daisy, catmint, or gaura.
Pots, Balconies & Small Courtyards
![]() |
| Rosemary and crepe myrtle in a courtyard—both sit on vet-approved safe lists and ranked in the top twenty pet-friendly plants sold last year. |
A dog in an apartment or townhouse courtyard meets plants at closer quarters. Anything at nose height in a pot will eventually be chewed. Keep toxic plants completely off balconies: no sago palms, cycads, dracaenas, yuccas, umbrella plants, philodendrons, or lilies.
✔️ Balcony Screening: Resilience or Baby Boomer lilly pillies in 40 to 50 centimetre pots create a green wall in two seasons. Westringia and rosemary make tough screens in wind and sun, while Pure Silk camellia sasanqua suits shaded balconies.
✔️ Potted Trees & Palms: Olives and Little Gem magnolias live happily in large pots for years. Indoors or on covered balconies, opt for bamboo palm, lady palm, ponytail palm, or bird's nest fern.
✔️ Container Tips: Use heavy concrete or glazed pots that dogs cannot tip. Stand pots on feet so drainage water does not pool in saucers for dogs to drink. Avoid spiny plants near flat-faced breeds (Pugs, Bulldogs) whose eyes sit close to foliage.
Planning a Shared Garden Space
Before buying plants, walk your block from your dog's perspective. Map out the patrol tracks, digging corners, and waiting spots. Dedicate high-traffic areas to hardy groundcovers (no mow grass, dichondra, silver carpet, tussock grass, lomandra) rather than delicate shrubs.
Always cross-reference nursery tags with official veterinary safe lists. Plant hedges densely, protect young root systems for the first season, and reserve delicate display flowers for areas fenced off from dog traffic.
A garden with a dog in it may never be a pristine show garden, but choosing the right evergreen bones ensures both you and your dog can comfortably share the space.
Photo Credits: All images supplied courtesy of Nursery Near Me.
Isaac Olson is a director of Nursery Near Me, an online nursery based in Brisbane that sources from wholesale growers around Australia and delivers to every mainland state. Their pet-friendly range and free plant care guides are at nurserynearme.com.au.





















