We want to say goodbye to mowing the grass, weeds, and garlic on this slope towards a busy road.
What would you recommend for how to kill this lawn (~1000 sq ft)? Ideally, we’d like a fresh start like all topsoil/mulch for all natives to start this spring.
Zone 6a, Midwest, USA. Thanks! 🫶
by sm4tejas
14 Comments
You’ve got a couple options:
1. Heavy mulch the entire thing, +/- lasagna mulching
2. Solarization with clear tarp
3. Occultation with opaque tarp
4. “Scalping” the lawn aggressively
5. Digging up the sod and replacing with topsoil
6. Herbicides
All could get you to a canvas for planting plugs or direct sowing
Near the end of autumn, mow that grass as low as possible. Cover the grass completely with cardboard. You can source big boxes without waxy coating from bike shops. Water the cardboard for a few nights so it’s nice and soggy. Cover the cardboard with mulch. Punch some new natives through before the freeze. Voila!
I just finished reading Prairie Up by Benjamin Vogt which I would recommend for you given your location and space.
It goes through a few different methods of lawn conversion and gives some guidance on starting what Vogt refers to as a matrix garden (i.e. using native groundcover plants instead of mulch with drifts of selected blooming plants interspersed throughout).
There’s a more detailed post from another user on this subreddit from a few years back.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoLawns/comments/zsyr5l/prairie_up_an_introduction_to_natural_garden/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I’m going with cardboard/mulch method, time to start saving cardboard if you pick this! A neighbor attempted the tarp method for two weeks during a heat wave, and after a week the ‘dead’ grass is already coming right back up. Plus mulch gives a better starting point, like you’re looking for.
I’ve seen people run in with a tiller to help initially kill the grass, but know thyself (it’d be a bigger PITA than I want to deal with lol).
Look around your area for chip drops, very cheap way to get lots and lots of mulch.
Hey OP, there are a handful of ways to do this but keep a few things in mind.
It’s a fairly steep slope so any bare soil is going to erode away with rainfall. Have a planting plan ready to go when you need it.
Sheet mulch will be problematic for this reason, the mulch will want to flush down to the sidewalk. Any tarping methods I have known to cause soil issues where it is severely hydrophobic due to the lack of water for a full season.
For those reasons, I’d recommend herbiciding your lawn. It leaves the turf in place as soil stabilization and does the least damage to the soil.
It depends on your financial resources. I have close to nil since I worked for nonprofits and am now disabled, so I do cardboard and a thick layer of wood chips. I tried pine straw and leaves, not nearly as effective since they’re so lightweight. Wood chips are tops, and free if you get your local arborist to drop a loaf on your lawn.
To start: mow that junk on the lowest possible setting. Then place a double layer of cardboard, then at least 4 inches of wood chips. Some folks wet the cardboard first, I never do.
I’ve done it slowly over five years or so and have about half my front yard covered and planted with natives. Get friends to help since it’s a lot of tedious labor. Make them take some of the wood chips home with them because a chip drop is more than enough.
Kill, till, kill, till, kill
So your slope looks like ours. We went native garden (mostly). I’ll launch a pic here in a bit.
But you’re looking at two things really. Erosion and grass removal.
The grass removal has been addressed, and we just used black plastic tarp in pieces as we’re working on getting rid of ALL, or at least mostly all, of our grass. “Grass” because like yours we didn’t have a well manicured green lawn, nor do I ever intend to.
For erosion you’ll want a mix of plants plus whatever retaining elements you want to put in. We used rocks. Got em from some guy off of Facebook who was just as happy to get rid of them as we were to take them. Strategically placed they can look pretty in addition to helping control erosion. You CAN do mulch which will work in at least up to a moderately strong storm (confirmed), but don’t be surprised if you come out one morning and all of your mulch is on the sidewalk. At the bottom, not sure how easy this would be for you but I would look at doing on the left side what you did on the right. A rock barrier of some sort to keep all the dirt from sliding off. Can use the same idea for boxing in any tree/bush you might want to plant, but a good ground cover that pops new roots in every few inches is the way to go.
Plant wise you’ll want to plot this out. A good evergreen ground cover is nice. Wildflowers work well spring-fall but you’ll need something to hold that dirt in over the winter. Ornamental trees, shrubs, flowering whatevers mixed in. The landscaping part is fun (and expensive – get as many perennials as possible).
Pic as promised. It’s about a month old and we’ve done a LOT of work since then. But you get the idea.
https://preview.redd.it/tcvy0dqk3off1.jpeg?width=4624&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be232c2821736beca4f2796bd396d7d15ad59091
herbicide is fastest, least mess etc.
I am very very against “new soil” in general. The soil is fine. “New soil” is a mix of compost and sand; you dont need it. Extra expense and extra work Plant densely –a plant a square foot– and leave the leaves etc and it’ll build into healthier soil.
Other thing about new soil with only a few plants at first is the weed seeds will always find it and go nuts. if they land on dead lawn between holes they are easier to manage as well, than if they land in all kinds of craggles.
also note the absolute worst thing to do for prep is rototill. you’ll stir up allllll the seeds, and cause both soil compaction and erosion.
note for next year: your lawn does appear to be largely crabgrass, so next year, you’re gonna have crabgrass. preemergents really help control it, or risk 1000 to one of your baby plants. timing is crucial, tune in here in spring: https://gddtracker.msu.edu/?model=7&offset=0&zip=76932
to be clear crab is an annual. you can spray it to kill what you see, but the seeds are banked and it’s very fast to mature, compared to perennials
Do nothing. Just weed whack a few paths and a few things you don’t want and leave all the volunteers.
You might lean into terracing or doing a bit of a retaining wall to manage the slope. Otherwise youll be dealing with a ton of run off between killing the lawn and new plants taking off
I just mow the grass low, then cover with a layer of compost/mulch and plant things in spring.
How about applying fertilizer to improve the lawn and planting some plants? Something like this: [https://app.neighborbrite.com/s/zbDZYz9BTU0](https://app.neighborbrite.com/s/zbDZYz9BTU0) It would look great.