I have 1300 sq ft of front yard I’m converting to native dry shade. When I ran out of cardboard, my husband suggested painters paper from the hardware store. $20 covered 500 sq ft and I found it really easy to roll out. You could use ram board if you need something thicker, but the grass was pretty patchy here, so I felt like I could get away with this. Let me know what you think!
by desertdeserted
3 Comments
My thought is that it will be ok in your area. Even with cardboard and dirt, I had some particularly tough dandelions push up through the cardboard and my new dirt in a section I covered last year.
You’d just want to be careful because most painter’s paper is chemically treated to make it water resistant (so paint doesn’t soak through the paper). I do not know if those chemicals are ecologically harmful or toxic to plants but always better safe than sorry. That’s also why the cardboard used for sheet mulching is supposed to be the plainest, untreated, undyed cardboard you can find.
An alternative to painter’s paper might be something [like this](https://www.amazon.com/Brown-Kraft-Paper-Roll-Wrapping/dp/B082KHMC2Z?th=1) craft/packing/butcher’s paper. It’s just plain uncoated heavyweight paper.
Big tarp. They sell the real thin ones pretty cheap at hardware stores. Then you have a tarp when it’s all cleared!