Shrinking my lawn

I just sheet-mulched another chunk of my lawn (I started last year with the patch to the right of the tree in the first picture). Total area about 100 square feet. I got rid of these chunks of lawn mostly to simplify mowing and because we don’t actually walk or play in those spots, but it’ll also be nice to have some more area I can plant with natives. In about a month I’ll put in some plugs of Prairie Dropseed and some forbs (probably black-eyed susan/rudbeckia hirta and smooth aster/symphyotrichum laeve).

If anyone’s interested in technique, I used Kraft paper instead of cardboard, because I didn’t feel like carefully removing the tape from and storing 100+ square feet worth of cardboard boxes. I know it’s not the classic technique, but it seemed to work ok the last time I did it. I put a bit of dirt in top of the paper and covered it with a cubic yard of mulch. This was the first time I did bulk mulch, and it was so much better than bagged; it was also the first time I really used a 10-time pitchfork to move mulch, which worked great. I highly recommend both of those if you’re ever mulching a large area.