Hello, Vast Unpaid Research Department. I have a gardening question which will involve either chemicals or machinery or possibly both.
I want to turn a part of our lawn into a perennial border. We own a rototiller. We also own a jug of glyphosphate concentrate and a sprayer with a wand. We also own a lot of cardboard.
We ALSO, and here’s the crucial part, have a lot of plants that need to get into that perennial border before winter. So the question is: given our resources, what’s the “best” way to create the bed for the border? Right now I’m thinking about using chemical warfare on the grass, then rototilling the area. YouTube viewing of Gardener’s World suggests I’m supposed to rent a turf cutter to take it out, though.
The grass is nothing tough like fescue or zoysia, fwiw. We don’t know what it is, but it’s something tenderer, like maybe bluegrass.
Renting a turf cutter makes sense if you’re doing a huge patch, but removing turf with a spade in small areas is perfectly practical. I’ve made a perennial bed from a grassed area maybe 3m by 50cm by simply digging out the grass and perennial weeds, adding a bit of clean topsoil and manure, leaving it to settle for a few weeks then planting. Rototilling is all well and good unless you have perennial weeds which can regrow from root fragments, in which case it’s a pain that multiplies your one annoying weed into hundreds of tiny baby annoying weeds :rolleyes:
Personally I would be very wary about spraying with glyphosate in ground that I intended to immediately replant; some recent research does indicate that the it may not always break down as fast as previously thought, and certain breakdown products may increase plants’ susceptibility to some fungal diseases. I go the covering-it with-cardboard route for preference, but I mostly do vegetable gardening in a place where it doesn’t have to look nice, and smothering with cardboard is pretty slow…
When I’ve expanded my garden into turf areas I’ve covered the area with something (I have some scrap boards for that, but cardboard could work) for a couple weeks, which weakens the plant life even if it doesn’t kill it outright, then dig it out with a spade.
I would not recommend chemical warfare if you intend to replant within a year.
A good quality rototiller can get through turf without too much difficulty (I’ve done it on sizable areas, up to about 50 x 25 feet in the past). Still a fair amount of work though.
With or without glyphosate you’re still going to have to dig the grass and roots out, so I doubt the herbicide is going to save significant labor.
Okay, you’ve convinced me against the glyphosate. I guess I’ll begin with cardboard to weaken the stuff…the intended bed will be 6’ x 40’, minus rounded corners. But if we just till the grass up, won’t the grass regrow from all the broken roots? Do we really have to remove-remove it?
Many ways to go without use of chemicals.
Use your cardboard as a mulch. Cut holes in it to plant your perennials. You can also layer organic matter under the cardboard too.
If you prefer to till do the cardboard on top for several weeks then till. I’d recommend tilling in some compost or other organic matter while you are at it. After you get your stuff planted mulch it to help contain the surviving grass.
Like I said many ways to go just depends on how much time you have to invest and how natural you want the process to be.