Many new comers (myself included) get radicalized by the beautiful content here and get to work ripping out their whole lawn immediately. I would really encourage people to create beds and sections season by season to “shrink” the lawn. Your survival rate of your plants will be much higher and your complaints from Nieghbor’s far fewer. Plus it gives you time to learn what works and what doesn’t, so the next bed you make works better. Some mistakes require a lot of work to undo (like weed barriers) and even more work at greater scale. It also helps keep you from getting burned out, having a fun little project to look forward to each spring instead of having to fix everything that died last year. You won’t cut corners on smaller projects, you’ll mulch right amount etc. and having a good established ecosystem helps the adjacent beds. If you rip out your grass wrong it will often come back (just really ugly) I have a kind of mixed mulch, grass, beds yard that looks a little rough but way better then when I first ripped everything out. White =year one, red =2, orange =3. Year three bed is younger but doing so much better because I know what I’m doing now lol. Minus agave that bad boy was first thing I ever planted. Also any suggestions on landscaping I’m open too.
by IntrepidIlliad
7 Comments
Texas hardiness zone 9a. I’ll have to take picks in a month because this is intentionally a SUMMER garden. (Blooms 8 months out of the year in Texas)
Current plant faves: agave and black foot daisy are invincible and beautiful. Salvias seem to have a tricky time coming back each year unless they have some shade. Word the wise full sun does NOT equal TEXAS full sun. Most my hardy natives do better with a little shade except for agave and pepper plants.
Great advice! A lesson I learned early on when transitioning to native plant beds instead of lawn: take manageable bites.
This is the approach I have taken as well. Currently half my yard is done. My neighbor across the street was talking to me about doing his next but was telling me he felt overwhelmed since his yard is so big. I told him to do it in sections and he thought that was a great idea that he hadn’t considered yet. Still waiting to see if he gets started before summer hits and it’s too late.
https://preview.redd.it/mr8hzvu7h9se1.jpeg?width=1124&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4fdd864089789d9b6478e2b04884556cab6ae88a
This was a grass slope. I will reply with a progression photo.
Absolutely 100% agree with OP. Also, as you expand your garden you can divide existing plants – which is a huge money saver.
This is only one area of my yard – I am currently about 80 /20 on garden/lawn with another 10% coming out this spring. It is a massive undertaking of 15ish years now.
Agreed and great advice! We are started our no lawn journey in 2018 and it has been a bit here and there. We started with the landscaping by the house, then added a retaining wall the next year and planted that up. The following year we added plants around the trees and the area of plants around the trees grew larger each year. This is the year we have gone full no lawn and I am so exited to see how it turns out!! Each year we get more and more compliments on our “yard” from neighbors and people that are walking by. I think this is the year I will finally be able to share pictures of our journey!
YES!!! In addition to the benefits listed, you can also save money by propagating plants from your older beds and your new plants won’t look so sad when there are more established ones in the older beds.