I have a vast, flat front yard. The previous owners had put in a small flower bed along the driveway, and there is another on one side of the porch and on the other side is a narrow bed which runs along the foundation of the house. I had a small rose bed dug a couple of years ago, but other than that my front yard is as flat as a pancake and it’s boring. The lawn is full of weeds and moss and I am tired of fighting it, and tired of having to pay for it to be cut. The one issue that keeps me restrained is that the utility lines for half of my end of the block cut through the lawn, which keeps me from putting in a fence or raised beds. I am aware that if the utilities need to dig, they will go through anything I have on top of the lines.
My son-in-law announced that he wants to help me with my daydreams of changing the front yard and is going to have three loads of topsoil/garden mix delivered and then he and the other (adult) kids will spread it as I want it. I have a vision of low mounded beds with a path wandering through, with a bench or two, planted in English Cottage style. The paths will probably be small-sized gravel (almost pea gravel) with pavers set into the gravel.
My son-in-law is planning on removing the sod first, but I don’t know if that is the best way to go. My soil is heavy clay, and when the rains come walking on the lawn is nasty, a person sinks through the grass into the mud. My thought is to dig out the worst of the weeds and add the new dirt on top of the existing sod, so the majority of the new dirt won’t be absorbed by the clay.
That’s it in a nutshell, do we keep the sod or dig it up? Also, I do know to call DialDig first!
Are you familiar with English Cottage gardens? My rose bed has David Austin roses, and I will put in some perennials that won’t break my heart if the utilities need to get under them before I can move them like columbine, lilies, delphiniums, foxglove, true geranium, dianthus and such, and fill in with easy annuals, cosmos, zinnias, verbena, lantana, and some vines such as sweet pea. There are others but I could go on forever! You get the idea I think.
If you plan on putting down a layer of mulch, I’d say just put the soil down without picking up the mess that’s there. You may have some work pulling stuff that’s popping up from below. I’m not a fan of chemicals, so I don’t recommend that, but if that’s not a problem for you, there are options.
Cover the grass with either newspaper or cardboard, then put down the topsoil, etc. This will effectively kill the grass. We did this in our back yard, only covered it with bark chips. Digging up sod is a royal PITA. Instead of pea gravel, use 1/4" fractured face. Pea gravel tends to wander and needs more frequent replacement. We used flagstone instead of pavers, and it looks nice.
Depending on how much effort you want to put into it, either what Chefguy said, or if you’re feeling terribly energetic, or aren’t sure if you’ll have enough new topsoil to totally smother the grass, first turn the turf over, then proceed as above.
As soon as I saw the part about a huge lawn area, I flashed on “sod-cutting machine”. You can rent them.
You can smother the lawn with black plastic or somesuch, but that still leaves the headache of planting into it and needing to improve soil quality. Best to remove sod first, (it can be composted) and then dig in soil improvements.
It does work, although, especially with cardboard, some tenacious weeds can just work their way up through the cracks between pieces, so putting down a couple layers of cardboard with the second layer covering the gaps is recommended. Several layers of newspaper is recommended if you go that route.
Most will get smothered if there’s enough dirt and a nice layer of mulch on top.
Yeah - figured as much. I recall reading of a local lady who was an avid gardener and composted her own paper - simply dug holes on her sizeable property and buried it.
I’ve also heard of people cutting and flipping the sod, tho that always struck me as unnecessary work.
How long does it take? Always struck me as the classic struggle between doing it right vs wishing immediate results. Similar to seeding vs sodding.
I saw that you recommend covering the paper w/ topsoil. Then do you plant immediately, punching through the paper/grass? If not, how long do you wait?
Stupid question - but how many layers of paper? I always thought it would require a heck of a lot of paper to do an entire lawn and - if not weighted down by topsoil - a lot of rocks.
And re: weeds - I forget the specifics, but a while back I read a book on weeds, and was gobsmacked by how many weed seeds are in most soils, and how long they can remain viable, just waiting for someone to till and expose them to the right conditions… :eek:
Having experimented a bit, on a small scale, about 5 layers of paper/1 layer of brown cardboard worked… mostly. Grass is pretty easy to kill by burying, it’s the weeds that are the problem, so it all depends on what weeds you have.
Flipping the sod and burying it works pretty well at getting rid of all but the most vigorous weeds; though it is more work then, it’s less later. It’s basically the same idea as ploughing, and farmers didn’t plough fields for thousands of years because they liked extra work.
On a small enough scale you can get the same effect by smothering thickly with a mulch (in this case, paper/card and topsoil), but it’s not cheap unless it’s a tiny area. You need to cover with enough topsoil that you’re not initially planting through the paper, if that’s laid right over the grass and weeds. We’re talking 4-5" minimum of topsoil, and it’ll be a full season before you can be pretty sure the weeds are dead and it’s safe to plant deeper than that 4-5".
Having said that, I had the odd dandelion survive being covered with card and buried over 8" under the surface, and they still made it back up. Them things are seriously determined plants.
If you’ve flipped the sod, you effectively have a much deeper planting depth available immediately, as the weeds won’t be exposed to the light even if you do plant into their roots, and they’ll have to punch through the turf then grow to the surface, without any so they’ve a much lower chance of survival.
Tried it both ways. Both worked, but I normally went for the sod flipping, even though it was hard work, as sourcing enough clean topsoil, getting it to the site and spreading it out was even harder work.
We put in planter boxes on top of the bark, rather than spread topsoil over all. You’ll want to make sure the grass is dead before punching through the paper, or it will sprout right back up. Weeds are nearly impossible to keep out. Even worse, a previous neighbor bed-planted bamboo (instead of confining it to a steel planter), which, unless you’re a panda, is a scourge. It’s nearly impossible to kill and spreads everywhere.
As for taking out sod, we did that on part of the front yard. What a royal pain in the butt, and days of hard work. But now we have a nice veg garden there, surrounded by a gravel path and bordered by flower beds. I wouldn’t attempt it now, at nine years older, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Have you checked if there are any ordinances in your town that require a lawn? There have been a few cases where people have gotten in legal trouble for taking out their grass.