Since it’s Earth Day and we are facing an extreme high fire danger day here on the Front Range of the Rockies, with record heat and drought, I’ve been thinking a lot about my decision to kill 3/4 of my front lawn. Thought it was worth updating you on what will be its second summer. All of my low-water/butterfly/hummingbird plants survived the winter, minus one daisy plant.
As they are all perennials, this summer will probably be one of minimal growth, but still lots of showy flowers. Next year I expect it to quickly become a jungle. Which is why I did minimal planting, in pretty groupings.
Last fall and this spring has been the real payoff – minimal work to maintain. I trimmed up a few plants this spring, I let the leaves from fall just compost right into the mulch and I’ve pulled minimal weeds (damn you bindweed). And now that the plants are established, the weekly watering I did last summer will be reduced to an “as needed” basis.
I will update with photos as soon as things pop – usually mid-June here (I’m still waiting for lilacs, everything has been late this year. Although my pussy-willows were full of bees today, so yay!).
But for now, let’s revisit how I killed my lawn and revitalized my soil in ways I could have never anticipated. (The worms! The worms!)
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It began innocently enough with laying out an outline of what might be nice and a promise I’d think about it for a while. Two weeks later, phase 1 is complete.
This was the beginning, outlining with bricks to see how I’d lay out the new yard
My goal was to create an excellent soil base to replace what is now pretty much cement hard clay. The previous owners used a chemical lawn service for at least a decade, that left the soil depleted and hard as a rock. Over the past four years, I’ve been amending it with compost, manure and aeration. A record drought this summer proved that none of those measures were enough to reinvigorate the lawn and the soil was still like granite.
I had several choices: use chemicals to kill (just no), or a bobcat to scrape, the grass and bring in a large amount of good soil and replant the grass, or add sod, or xeriscape. I was definitely leaning towards creating an area of low-water native plantings. But the cost of scraping a lawn and bringing in yards and yards of compost/soil was cost-prohibitive.
Then a bit of research led me to the Sheeting Method. Better soil would be achieved by killing the grass and weeds with a sealed layer of cardboard and mulch. Leaving an excellent base for native plants and bushes to replace the grass.
The next step was a hunt for cardboard.
Thanks to neighborhood apps, I was able to relieve multiple neighbors of their cardboard just before recycling day, so it was already flattened. They didn’t have to drive it to the recycling center, and I got several carloads of boxes.
I hired a landscaper who was more than happy to learn more about the Sheeting Method and then I started laying cardboard a few days before he arrived.
Several things I learned as I went – clear tape is compostable but takes a long time. Removing it was easy, and research told me that any leftover would float to the top of the soil as the cardboard decomposed. So I didn’t sweat the small pieces. Chewy, Amazon and Walmart boxes were my favorite. They didn’t use clear tape or external packing slips.
Also, working with wet cardboard is much easier than dry. Boxes have to be torn into even pieces, so the end flaps don’t leave gaps. Wet cardboard tears easily at the seams and leaves clean edges. Then pieces are layered and overlapped in a way so that no grass or weeds can escape through any seams. I used brown paper – paper bags, packing material – and small pieces of cardboard around existing plantings. In the end, not a blade of grass showed through.
Then the fun began. My landscaper planted my new tree and delivered a heap ton of mulch. It was taller than me when it was unloaded. We had some fun with Jurassic Park and Great Dane jokes. The landscaping crew did a beautiful job, ensuring everything was well-covered to avoid any grass or weeds showing up.
Eventually, there will be a few that find their way, because “life finds a way,” but it should be easy to tackle them before they become a problem.
The phase one results are beautiful.
Now I’m playing around with paving stones, rocks and plants for placement. I won’t be able to plant anything new until spring. Don’t want to pierce the weed barrier prematurely.
At least now, the neighbors can stop wondering why I was watering cardboard for a week.
If you’re wondering why I left an area of grass, there are two reasons. The first being, that’s a plum tree, and I was not going to try and pick plums out of mulch every summer when I could just mow them into the lawn with my (electric) mower. Second, I’m still looking at selling my house in the near future, and grass is still desirable as a selling point.
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A few months later, about this time last year, I stuck a hand spade into the yard to see how composting was going…what I found shocked me…and my landscaper:
What’s with photo of dirt?
….this spring, once the ground had thawed enough for me to start thinking about transplanting the Burning Bush and the Boxwoods, I scraped away some of the mulch.
And much to my surprise, I found, not decaying cardboard and dying grass, but beautiful soil, filled with super-sized worms by the handful. This was the hope, but I was not expecting it this quickly. Maybe by the end of the summer, but end of winter? read more here
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So that’s the update. A week of hard work, a spring of planting a variety of plants, and minimal watering, I have a yard that’s not only pretty, but fairly maintenance-free. I think my total over fall-spring-summer 20/21 is about $2500.
And for the backyard, which I will continue this summer, I’ve been overseeding with red and white clover. Stands up to the dogs, survives on limited water, and fertilizes the grass when mowed.
This is an open thread
MomSense
WooHoo! Love what you are doing, Tamara.
trollhattan
Fight the good fight/the struggle is real. Went through this ourselves five or so years ago and while it’s been a mixed bag (weeds, recalcitrant drip system, weeds, plants that didn’t make it) the lack of a lawn has never bothered us. While we were one of a few then, now it’s lawns are the oddballs.
Enjoy!
wetzel
That is all so lovely and well-tended.
I am thinking of the difference in moving the family to Davis, CA or to Chicago, IL for the sinecure of my pipedreams, and though I went to college in California, it is so different now with the fires. Over the past twenty five years it has been a marked change, the sense of fire in the unconscious of the West. I am sorry you are experiencing that, if it’s real. I don’t know. I’m in Georgia, but it is affecting my decision making, the idea of living in some beautiful surrounding but in precarity versus fire season all the time. I don’t know if this is real or my over-active and antic imagination.
You have really good taste. It reminds me of the really nice houses in-town in Atlanta in Inman Park or Decatur, where the yards are not very big but there is love in every square foot. Thank you for making this post.
TaMara
@trollhattan: I have to tell you, I’ll take it. The first four years of fighting the old lawn and clay soil were both backbreaking and heartbreaking.
Sure Lurkalot
We are talking about doing much the same in our backyard after this growing season. And our HOA, which manages the front common areas, is also looking into removing some of the grass. Thanks for the inspiration!
TaMara
@Sure Lurkalot: If you want any advice from my hard-earned knowledge, LOL, just shoot me an email.
Kristine
I used black garbage bags to kill off lawn around my deck. Definitely not as ecologically sound, but it worked. This was a few years ago.
I saved uncoated Kraft paper from two years worth of packaging—I plan to use to extend some mulched areas. I found cardboard hard to wrestle with even though I know it’s the usual material used.
Looking forward to photos of all the new plantings.
dww44
Thanks for sharing. It’s nice that your lovely little ranch/bungalow somehow fits with my image of what your home would actually look like. It’s nice when one’s mental image comports to reality.
CaseyL
You’re moving??
I first learned about the cardboard method on one of YouTube farming channels I subscribe to. “Cheap and restorative” is a great combination. If I ever have a yard, it’ll be good stuff to know, since I’ll want to put in beds of veggies and flowers rather than have a lawn.
As a side note, it’s interesting to me how much the farmers/homesteaders I follow are into restorative farming, and “restoring the dirt.” Some of them get absolutely lyrical talking about dirt biomes.
wenchacha
I’m so impressed with your work and the results! I’d like for us to incorporate more clover into the yard. It would be good for the pup.
TaMara
@dww44: My nieces call it the dollhouse. It’s tiny…
Which is why, @CaseyL: I am still thinking of moving. More room for more rescues. LOL
But at the moment we are in a weird housing price boom/shortage. My real estate agent is looking at land options, which would be awesome, a bit northwest of here.
Jay
Feed the soil, not the plants. The soil will feed the plants. Let the worms, nematodes and bacteria, ( amongst others) do the hard work.
Here, dealing with a lot of customers trying to deal with a dead lawn, ( grubs), flooding, plugged draintiles, etc.
Sod, ( grown in clay), overtop of 4 inches of topsoil at best, over top of 16 feet of alluvial sand and gravel.
So they dethatch, ( moss), airate, ( add sand for drainage), run chemicals, and wonder why their lawn is still garbage.
Morons.
On the bright side, when you bury a body, plant the grave with endangered plants. It now becomes illegal to dig there.
Follow my youtube channel for more gardening tips.
Steeplejack
@TaMara:
Great work!
evodevo
As one who lives in the outer hilly Bluegrass region in KY, I can sympathize…we have mostly woods, and there the topsoil is maybe 7 inches deep. Then hardpan clay and under that, limestone ledgerock. If you want better soil, horse manure in tonnage quantities is the way to go. You till it in year after year, and in a decade or so, there you are….I raised my garden for years in creek bottoms, where the floodplain soil was a foot or so deep, and much more plant friendly lol. I got straw mixed with horse manure and mulched the heck out of it, to keep the weeds down. Worked well, but was too much back-breaking labor after I hit 45…Now I just do a few tomatoes or peppers in containers…
TaMara
@Jay: Funny story. When I moved here, there was a raised strawberry bed placed awkwardly in the backyard. Bixby made it his personal mission to dig it up. Then the ducks discovered strawberries. So I dismantled it and gave away the strawberry plants.
Bixby was still obsessed with that area of the yard…and kept digging. I had to place lawn chairs over it to stop him.
Now, fast forward, and Trixie has entered her digging phase. And guess where she digs? Yup.
I think we know where the dead body is in my yard.
Sure Lurkalot
@TaMara: Thanks so much, I may take you up on your offer! We just built a 6 x 10 raised bed with much the same method you used with cardboard and mulch. An experiment before moving further to the rest of the yard.
Starfish
@TaMara: Your yard looks lovely!
The prices have been unreal. Did you see the LGM post from yesterday? Bananas.
Sure Lurkalot
@CaseyL: Have you seen The Biggest Little Farm? It’s a good story and it certainly helps to have a seemingly unlimited source of capital as the owners in that movie must have. Still some fine lessons to be learned.
Jay
@TaMara:
We had a drought here, last year, and a heat wave that killed people.
So, ever since the fall rains came, I am dealing with “customers” who are looking for a “quick fix” for their draintiles and sewer lines blocked with tree roots.
I always ask them, “did you water the trees, root prune them and feed them?”
of course not, “the willow is always too close to the house”, ?
TaMara
@Starfish: Yeah, Boulder also has huge water restrictions. If you can’t add water and sewage lines to vacant lots, you can’t build houses. That’s how they decided to manage growth.
The real problem seems to be investment property (around the country, not just CO) – and the CO legislators are making noises about restricting that. Not sure how successful that will be…
I remember when I was looking for this house during another “boom” cycle and house after house was snatched up by cash buyers, horrible, cheap updates done, and then back on the market at a huge mark-up. Rinse, repeat.
wetzel
My neighbor for the first ten years we lived in our Atlanta neighborhood was an ecology teacher. He made a water feature in his front yard and then let the rest go to native habitat. He was an old country fellow, and it was for ‘critters’, he would say. The neighbors walking their dogs would try to enlist me in a ‘what a weirdo’ conversation about him every few times a year, and I would say he just wasn’t keeping up his responsibility to the national lawn, but he’s just an eccentric ecology teacher, bless his heart. They sold their house to somebody who put $150,000 into new cladding, landscaping and tasteful interior finishes, then flipped it for $250,000 profit. The new neighbors are just fine. It’s just the way a neighborhood changes.
moops
we did our entire yard in Pleasant Hill, California. Only one other yard on the block did the cardboard sheets and thick woodchips thing, the rest still pump water and chemicals on grass lawns.
They are interested, but not ready to give up the green grass yet.
Fair Economist
Envious. My HOA requires grass, although Cali law requires they permit artificial lawns aka outdoor carpeting. That’s work too though, to keep clean.
Roger Moore
@Starfish:
It’s true we don’t have a shortage of housing at a national level. What we have is a mismatch between where the houses are and where people want to live. Cities in the Rustbelt are shrinking, while ones in the South and West are growing to absorb the people who leave. The result is abandoned housing in some places and a shortage in others. It would be great if we could move jobs from the areas with a housing shortage back to the places with a surplus, but that isn’t happening.
Jay
@wetzel:
the house I built south of Kamloops had rainwater stacks and a separation of greywater into storage, and a septic field.
despite living in what is classed as a semi desert, never had a water shortage.
Used snow breaks and skim dams to hold water on the 40acres.
other than an initial bumper crop of mosquitoes until other creatures colonized the areas, no biggie.
Eric S.
This is inspiring. I’m 30 days from moving to a house from my condo. I’m remaining in Chicago. My back “yard” is concreted over. The front yard has grass. I have a midterm plan to change the front to maybe prairie grass and flowers. Other priorities will Friday it a year or so but it’ll happen.
pluky
Field of clover will make the bees happy too. They need all the help they can get these days.
Eric S.
@pluky: I’ve done some very primary research into bee husbandry. That may be something I pursue at the new place.
delk
@Eric S.: did you find anything in Lincoln Square?
Sure Lurkalot
@Eric S.: Congratulations, I hope you enjoy your new home and your plans come to fruition.
StringOnAStick
I love how fast you got real soil! It looks great.
If you are thinking about selling, then keep some grass (unfortunately). When we sold our house in Golden 1.5 years ago, the lack of grass especially in the backyard turned off buyers who had dogs or kids.
I spent last summer removing all the backyard grass here and collecting basalt blocks to make it all raised border beds with a pathway system between them that we’re going to “pave” with decomposed granite this year. My giant box of xeric plants arrived today and I got half of them in before it started raining. I will do the layered grass killing system in the front yard if our landscaper blows us off because he’s too busy this year.
TaMara
OMG, Colordao peeps! A State Rep just tweeted at Gov. Polis calling him a groomer for saying CO would offer Mickey and Minne asylum from FL. I’ll find the video when I can. I think she deleted the tweet.
StringOnAStick
@pluky: I heard rumours last year at a city sponsored event for getting people to drop their water use of a clover that can replace grass as a lawn. Clover fixes nitrogen so it improves the soil, bees love the flowers and the guy who brought up this “new variety of clover” said mowing was minimal. Worth using Google to find out more.
wetzel
Our yard has gone from a zoyshia monoculture to a pathwork culture. A sales rep gave us spiderwart years ago, and it has leaped it bounds from our mailbox bed. I am writing a gothic novel about rotting soffett and fascia boards. One day we will return our house to fair condition!!! Everyone in this thread is higher functioning.
Geminid
@pluky: I’ve read that honey bees can’t do much with red clover. There are plenty of native bees that can, though.
Crimson clover is a good forage plant for honey and other bees. It’s a very pretty annual that makes a good cover. Ag supply stores sell it for ~$13 for a three pound bag, and sometimes cheaper by the pound.
CaseyL
@TaMara: Ah! I thought it looked small from the photo, but couldn’t tell if it went beyond the photo. Two Danes, two cats, and winter ducks in that place? My goodness!
Are you looking for vacant land, to build on?
@Roger Moore:
I watch prices on the real estate websites go up, up, up, in places that were once considered affordable. A house in Oroville Washington that I looked at 2 years ago, listed for $325K. Today, similar houses in the same development are going for double that. In Oroville, a little town at the top center of the state.
Dan B
When o moved to Seattle in 1973 everyone had lawns. Wealthy and middle class people had green lawns. Poor an lower middle class people had tan lawns from July to October because we don’t get enough rainfall from May to the beginning of November to keep them green. Now even some wealthy neighborhoods let the lawns go “golden”.
In 30 years as a landscape designer I only planted a couple lawns and those were from seed. It’s much more appealing to have perennials, shrubs and trees plus terraces and paths. People spend time outside but are on lawns primarily when there’s a programmatic need like Frisbee or catch. I have photographic proof!
CaseyL
@Sure Lurkalot: Omigosh, that looks like a wonderful movie/documentary! And now there’s a sequel! Thank you!
Geminid
@wetzel: There is some spiderwort in front of the cottage where I live. It’s a native plant. An English herbalist, John Tradescans (the Younger), brought it back from one of his plant-gathering trips to the new colony of Virginia, around 1630. Carl Linnaus gave this spiderwort the name Tradescantia Virginianus.
Spanish speaking people sometimes call this plant Flor de Santa Lucia, Saint Lucie’s Flower. Saint Lucy is a patron saint of eyesight, and herbalists sometimes used a preparation from spiderwort to treat eye problems.
wetzel
@Geminid: You did not include how to eradicate it!
Geminid
@wetzel: Dig your spiderwort up and give to your friends. Tell them it’s Saint Lucie’s Flower.
Jay
All bees and pollinators like (love) thyme.
plus it smells great to walk across.
Eric S.
@delk: I am ending up in Irving Park. (not Old Irving). Thanks for asking. It wasn’t my first choice obviously but I found a place that just met 90% of my needs and wants. I’m very excited. Also, very anxious. There’s just so much to do in the next 30 days.
kalakal
Nice job! Looks great. Here in Pinellas Florida lawns drive me crazy. The ‘soil’ is a mix of sand, seashells and construction material. Lawns tend to look horrible unless you irrigate them through the dry season and then people wonder why there are sinkholes as the aquifers empty. I’ve basically expanded the beds and am working on a rolling program of perennial peanut and asian jasmine as a replacement.
MomSense
Love this! I also seed with red and white clover.
Not sure about CO but in Maine burning bush is considered an invasive species and we have been removing it from our neighborhood.
Miki
Oh yeah – alternate name for this post s/b “I Am Not A Sodbuster.”
I built two no-till gardens in my never-gardened backyard in 2007. Mowed the grass short, sprinkled on some basic fertilizer, covered with newspaper, spread mulch, planted 2 inch potted perennials in the mulch and Shazam! Amazing! For years! And worms galore. Planting more plants in later years didn’t result in weed issues until too much mulch had composted, which was fairly easily fixed by adding a shit ton more mulch.
Unfortunately, the years have passed and my aging bones have rebelled against gardening, especially mulch hauling, so I need to find a less painful way to garden. Elevated boxes seem to be the answer. I’m going to work with my BIL on designs to be placed on pavers in that no-till mulched garden. ??