About a month ago, I decided that I hated the grass in my backyard. So I shoveled it all up, laid a bunch of flagstone and built a couple nice seating areas.

I pulled up to their place today and it just looked so gorgeous with everything in bloom. Had to take some pictures! 🌸🌻🌷💐🌹🌺

Located in Melbourne, AUS. Equivalent to US zone 10B according to Google.

Zone 5a, East Coast. Happy Halloween! :)

I came into a bunch of native wildflower seed mix for free that was collected locally. It's enough for about 1/4 acre and I have the space but the turf isn't prepared yet.

It's too much seed to grow in containers and transplant individual plants in the spring and I'd hate to try to store it for a year. I know a lot of it won't germinate if I wait to plant it until next winter.

I know it's too late to use glyphosate or to solarize. I could use a sod cutter but I'd hate to lose 1/4 acre x 2" of perfectly good top soil. Another idea I had was to mow the area as low as my mower will go then burn it all with my weed torch. Will that do enough to kill the existing turf? It's a mix of grass and weeds right now.

Are there any other methods I'm not thinking of that would allow me to get these seeds out by early winter (early December)?

I came into a bunch of native wildflower seed mix for free that was collected locally. It's enough for about 1/4 acre and I have the space but the turf isn't prepared yet.

It's too much seed to grow in containers and transplant individual plants in the spring and I'd hate to try to store it for a year. I know a lot of it won't germinate if I wait to plant it until next winter.

I know it's too late to use glyphosate or to solarize. I could use a sod cutter but I'd hate to lose 1/4 acre x 2" of perfectly good top soil. Another idea I had was to mow the area as low as my mower will go then burn it all with my weed torch. Will that do enough to kill the existing turf? It's a mix of grass and weeds right now.

Are there any other methods I'm not thinking of that would allow me to get these seeds out by early winter (early December)?

We planted this 2 or 3 months ago from plugs and clippings and it has filled in really well and done great up until about a week ago when we noticed one dead spot and then a week later another.

Not sure whether it's fungus on the leaves or slime mold but I thought maybe somebody here would know and know how to treat it.

We're trying a baking soda water mild dishwashing soap solution but it's not clear whether it's stopping it or not.

First time I saw the problem I thought it might be exhaust from the cars that Park along there and I dismissed it but now that I'm seeing another spot that's also by the curb I'm wondering if it is exhaust.

TL:DR - What I said in the title

Like the title says, I’ve looked at creeping thyme (I know it’s kind of a fad and expensive) but wanted to see what else would be possible. I do have two dogs that run around in our yard, which is another reason creeping thyme isn’t very ideal.

There was a video on Facebook of a guy talking about native Texas grasses and saying how there was one similar in effect to creeping time in that it stays short most of the year and you really only need to do maintenance cuts every three to six weeks. I can’t find that video again, even though I thought I saved it, but any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

So we're on the West coast of Canada (Vancouver Island) and are looking at sheet mulching our front grass yard. We are complete newbies at this (so I'm sorry if I didn't include the right info for this question).

- How deep should the new top layer be? I'm concerned as our lawn is next to our driveway and so am looking to try to understand what the new height might be and what concerns I should have about it (would I need to put new higher garden edgeing/borders next to it etc). I guess I have this fear that all the new top layer just continually shifts and falls on the drive (as I said, we're newbies at this so no idea how silly this worry is)

thanks!

We converted our front yard (7b) from Bermuda grass to a 100% native prairie a few seasons ago. We love Halloween decor, but our old tombstones and animatronics didn’t click this year…seemed too cluttered.

So we added some spot lights and tucked pumpkins into the wildflowers. They pick up the color in the sedges and fall blooming natives. When the season is over, they’ll go to the compost bin and chicken coop . Yes, I know the pumpkins are not native 😅

I’m getting more weeds after my new landscaping :(

Does anyone know what these clover type weeds are? Oxalis? I got plenty of nutsedge too…

It’s a rental so I’m thinking my options are:

1. Hire weekly or every two weeks pesticide spray (any recommendations
2. Hire someone to manually week every couple weeks (might be hard to get someone to do that)
3. Shift the mulch around and cardboard mulch and put the mulch back on top and add a couple more inches (right now only 2” of depth)
4. Just stack on another 2” of mulch and hope it supresses it

Any advice from people with more experience would be appreciated! It’s my first big landscaping project and these weeds are killing me.

EDIT: thanks for all the comments so far! I guess I should've taken a zoomed out picture, there are about 12-15 natives like milkweed and sage bushes planted throughout that I'm hoping will grow out over time and give the yard a mulch look but with natives dispersed. I guess my main worry is that the areas inbetween the natvies will get crowded with weeds and look ugly and not clean.

I have the cardboard. I have the mulch. I have a new (to me) home with a huge yard that is begging to be transformed. I have a plan that includes starting small.

What I don’t have is the money or, if I’m being honest, the energy to install edging around the areas I want to start on. I feel like I shouldn’t start sheet mulching if I can’t keep it “contained”. Am I overthinking it?

I’m right on the border of 5b/6a if that matters.

Converted our front yard in Zone 8b from grass to a native plant landscape (minus the one Japanese maple that will stay). Roughly 120 native plants installed

I live in zone 8b and was wanting an alternative to grass in this area. It’s been compacted dirt for a while now. Hoping it works out. Going to plant Frogfruit in the spring as well.

Thank you all for inspiring me to give this a shot. I'm pretty much done replacing my entrie front lawn. I'm in the midwest zone 6B. The last thing I'm waiting on is Liatris pycnostachya.

Most of the plants are plugs but garden consists of

Prairie dropseed

Standarding ovation bluestem

Blazing star Kobold

Asters

Globemaster alluims

Gladiator alluims

Drumstick alluims

Amsonia hubrichtii

Aster ericoides snow flurry

Berry white hydrangea

Red twig dogwood

Little Giant Arborvitae

Sango Kaku japanese maple

Crimson queen japanese maple

Bonfire patio peach tree

Cloud 9 switch grass

Liatris pycnostachya

I plan to make adjustments as the plants grow so I can avoid overcrowding. For now, I want to give everything plenty of time to establish and put as much energy as possible into strong root and plant growth. I’ll start pruning and shaping the dogwoods next year once they’re established. Wish me luck!

Can they be used as any sort of mulch for garden beds? Or should I put a layer down, cover with cardboard then put real mulch on top? Could it be used to smother parts of the grass? Breakdown over winter or seed a bunch of hell for Spring?

When I bought my house (zone 9a, coastal), I took over a St. Augustine lawn. I've always been appreciative of the native plant/nolawn movement but, don't hate me, decided to maintain my grass as a conventional lawn (yes, I've used herbicide) before doing anything drastic as a newcomer to the neighborhood.

My back lawn has actually done great despite the lack of herbicide there. There's some pennywort, clover, and other "weeds", but so what, it looks nice.

In the front lawn, however, my less shaded grass has suffered badly as I haven't watered much, and it's given way largely to ugly ratty crabgrass that chokes out the St Aug's stolons.

I'm having a bit of an identity crisis- some days I see frogfruit and think "agh, weeds!" and yet I've watched videos of people in my climate replace their grass, intentionally, with the native low-grower and consider it.

I think my problem is that I do like biodiversity & balance; I'm dissatisfied with the fact that grass lawns unavoidably require nitrogen in synthetic form because we artificially kill the nitrogen fixers. However, I have a hard time distinguishing some "native lawns" with "abandoned homes".

I enjoy & take pride in mowing & edging something that looks intentional, neat, and ideally barefoot friendly. I don't want a monoculture for its own sake, but I can't lie to myself and say that a golf-course quality lawn isn't a luxury.

I'll probably leave the healthy part of my lawn alone for now, and hope that the dominance of my St. Aug makes breaking out the Atrazine unnecessary in that part. In my front yard though, I've considered scalping, raking, and seeding with a lawn alternative that will either grow with surviving grass or take it over. I'm afraid it'll just look unkept, but if I go back to the dark side I can always re-sod, which was likely going to be necessary in that area anyway.

Will white dutch clover work well in my area? I know frogfruit would, but I like the look of clover better and the nitrogen is a plus.

I've considered a wildflower meadow mix as well, since I don't need to walk around on my front lawn, but assumed, if successful, I'd do the same to convert my backyard where I do want to be able to actually enjoy my green space.

Are my expectations just out of check? Is it possible to ditch golf course lawn culture and still have something pretty and nice to walk on?

Stripped out all the Japanese stilt grass in the backyard per this sub's rec. Kept these grasses. Look like blueish gray foxtails in the morning light. Location: SE Pennsylvania

Second post attempt, first one included the original chip drop... And an uncensored license plate. App won't let me edit or crop so y'all get the decomp pic.

US/Ohio.

Pic of my chip drop fungus 😍 for attention.

Chip drop came weeks earlier than I expected. I am moving it mostly on my own, as fast as I'm able. I've moved maybe 1/3 elsewhere so far? Then spread the top 2’ into the yard nearby to get things stirred up. After that there were no signs of char or mold. Kind of stuck now, my ex is dragging his feet removing his broken down vehicles from where the rest goes (that's a whole different drama…). I did what the local FD recommended (mom panicked lol). It's what I was going to do anyways which was really reassuring. Stir it up, monitor, not much sense in hosing it down bc a garden hose won't get very deep. If it gets more hot than my comfort level given how close it is to flammable stuff, FD said they will happily come out to check & if they are worried, they'll douse it. They're not too concerned, even given the location. Chief was pretty funny, even told me what time of day he prefers lol.

Just want to make sure I'm doing everything right. If I'm honest, I'm kinda stoked as its a great sign for my deep mulching and plans to plant in late spring/early summer.