Lawn Be Gone

Our friend over at buenoluna taught a class she called lawn be gone. Here in California our periodic droughts make lawns a luxury. We decided to get rid of our front lawn. But how to do it? One method we used was digging a hole in the lawn with a mattock or shovel and then removing the sod for an area bigger than the plant that was going to go into the hole.

When everything is planted, you just newspaper mulch over the grass. Do this by taking newspaper, several pages thick, dunking it in a bucket of water for a few seconds and then lay it over the grass. Make every layer overlap and cover your lawn. Then throw regular mulch on top of that. It's also important to dig up the edges of the lawn 6-8 inches in. You can't newspaper all the way to the sidewalk, so grass will grow out the edges otherwise.

We planted this section of the front yard 5 months ago in November. It's still a little bare awaiting spring growth, but there are and have been almost no weeds.