Location: Denver
After a false start, then going back to the drawing board, I’ve now nearly completed phase 2 of my lawn conversion. Phase 1 was attempting to remove the lawn with a sod cutter last year and failing.
Started out with 1700sqft of lawn. Removed it with a sod cutter last year and seeded a native seed mix, but the turf grass game back. Solarized it this summer to start over, then ordered a chip drop and sheet mulched after that.
In the past few weeks I have planted:
- Buffalo grass lawn (about 400 plugs)
- About 100 prairie dropseeds
- Prairie pussytoe pathway
- About 100 various native wildflowers
- 20-ish native ornamental grasses (blue grama, Idaho fescue, switchgrass, tufted hair grass, little bluestem)
- Rubber rabbitbush
Flower list:
- leadplant
- scarlet globemallow
- fringed sage
- gayfeather
- smooth blue aster
- wild strawberry
- blue flax
- showy goldeneye
- shrubby potentilla
- sunset glow penstemon
- firecracker penstemon
- winecups
- harebells
- yarrow
- golden columbine
- rocky mountain columbine
- nodding onion
- sunset hyssop
- anise hyssop
- blue pitcher sage
- prairie coneflower
- sandia coral bells
- rigid goldenrod
- blanketflower
- prairie lily
- showy fleabane
- swamp milkweed
- wild bergamot
- black eyed susan
- white prairie clover
- purple prairie clover
- dotted blazing star
- prairie violet
- prairie red coneflower
- yellow coneflower
Last year I put in woods roses, golden currants, shrubby potentilla and a sand cherry.
I also trenched a pipe from the rain barrel overflow outlet to a basin I dug out to serve as a small rain garden. The rest of the yard is on new drip irrigation. Whole thing was a DIY project.
by Imaginary-Key5838
3 Comments
Thats awesome! Im excited to see you post again next year.
Excellent job. Nice selection of plants.
I’ve always been skeptical of the sod cutter method. I just don’t like the idea of leaving the plant material in the soil – it seems like there is a good likelihood that some of it will come back. I smothered my front yard, but I think I started too late – I went from the beginning of July into November and a decent amount of turf grass survived (along with white clover which has been rather irritating). If I were to do it again I would use glyphosate (~3 treatments over a full growing season).
Anyway, this looks awesome! That’s a ton of plants to get in the ground! I had never heard of Showy Fleabane (assuming *Erigeron speciosus*) and that looks like such a cool plant. I just planted Prairie Violet (*Viola pedatifida*) – they look like beautiful little plants. Best of luck!