How to remove a lawn; part 2

Spring is coming and I know a lot of people are thinking about expanding or planting a native plant garden. Inevitably the first question is about site preparation and, specifically what to do with the lawn that is between them and their wildlife and native plant garden destiny.

How to remove a lawn is by far the most often searched phrase that leads people to my blog, and that post (titled the same) is far and away my most viewed page.

I thought I’d update the post with some more information and details based on questions I receive on this blog, in my speaking engagements and from mine and my wife’s native plant, wildlife and sustainable garden coaching business, Butterfly Properties (yes, my last name is German for "butterfly").

Like painting a house or so many other things, success is only guaranteed by the mundane tasks of preparation.  Site preparation is the inglorious hard work that is the most important part, but often the part that gets short cut.  And what is true for painting a house is true for gardening and native plant landscaping.  Frustration, failure, dissatisfaction or disillusionment can often be traced back to skipping steps and taking short cuts in site preparation.  In gardening terms, specifically in a native plant garden  that comes down to getting rid of the existing lawn and keeping it out.

In defense of the sod cutter. 

Sod cutters are hard to use, they are loud, they run on gas, and they are the best tool for the job.

Although meticulously removing sod is always my suggestion, I am always met with questions where people would like an alternative.  An alternative that many perceive is easier, more earth friendly, cheaper, quicker, etc...  around here (Missoula) for the last few years, "lasagna" gardens or sheet mulching has become very popular.  Initially popular, that is, it becomes very unpopular when people have to remove it, or deal with weeds in the lasagna.  Typically what leads to failure is not giving the lasagna garden time enough to work, not dealing with the existing weeds, our climate, or a combination of the three.
The idea of a lasagna garden is a nice one, and one that should be left for the idea book. A lasagna garden can work, I know, but I don't recommend it.

In my blog (and in our garden coaching business) I advocate for physically removing the lawn and I still do.  This is the thing most people are resistant to do, but I think it is still the best and most effective way.  It is also the quickest, and depending on you method, it could be the least resource intensive.  You can dig it all up with a hand sod lifter or even a square bladed shovel and then compost it on site- This has to be one of  the most, if not the most, resource un-intensive methods for lawn removal.

Composting the sod does take time and a lot of space (depending on the quantity of sod you are removing).  Also if you are going to go this route, dry the sod out (under a tarp or something and them screen the soil off  first. 

The inevitable questions:

What about solarizing? Using cardboard?  Using a rototiller? Turning the sod upside down?

There is always someone that will say it worked for them, but there are probably three other people out there that have a different experience.  We have removed a lot of lawn, and the sod cutter (in one form or another) is always our method. My wife and I have landscaped public areas, little parks (like the Native Plant Garden at 8th and Grant), and other places that get very little maintenance, and the essential steps to ensuring that the areas stay weed free are below.

The typical steps (from How to Remove a Lawn):

1. remove the sod
2. remove any weeds the sod cutter missed
3. wait a little while to see what germinates or grows back than remove that, too.  
4. cover soil with newspaper or cardboard
5. apply mulch
6. plant

Although I provide more detail on other aspects of lawn removal here, these are some questions 

Is it hard to use a sod cutter?  Yes.  It takes work, depending on your soil (or lack of soil, like in many Missoula yards) it can be a beast of a job.  I am not saying don’t do it, just be prepared. One of the biggest mistakes people make is removing too much soil, and this leads to a lot of extra work.  

It is critical to set the sod cutter at the proper depth- you don’t want to remove perfectly good soil, just get below the rooting depth of the grass. 

Although you can plant right away, it's better to wait and see what comes up. But don’t wait too long, because you will be inviting anything and everything from germinating.

Is lawn edging necessary?

Yes, unless you really enjoyed removing the sod and want to keep doing it for years to come. 

Edging is very effective, if installed correctly.  Buy the biggest (deepest) kind possible.  Aesthetically, metal edgings looks the best, steel or aluminum.  Metal edging has the smallest profile and creates a nice clean look. Although I like steel the best, it is the most expensive and the hardest to work with.  For most homeowners, I suggest plastic edging.  The main criticism with plastic edging is from when it is improperly installed and it sits up too high.  This is a problem for a several reasons.  First, aesthetically, it is ugly.  Second, if it is too high, it can work its way out of the ground through the freeze/ thaw cycle.  Third it is ugly.  Fourth, if it is set too high, it may allow rhizomes and runners to get underneath and invade the lawn-less area.    Did I mention that if you set it too, high it is ugly?  Just set the edging so it is just proud of the surface of the soil.  If installed correctly, you shouldn't really notice it.

One great source for lawn edging in Missoula is at Home ReSource.  It always seems like they have some there and it is a great thing to re-use.

The final suggestion is about the size of the project.  This is another thing that can lead to disillusionment.  Only remove what you can plant in the near future (could be a week or season, depending on your time and goals)- don’t embark on too big of a project.  I'd rather someone gets satisfied completing a small project and has inspiration to continue, instead of attempting something too large and being overwhelmed by trying to do too much. Unfortunately, the only way to know what is too big or too small is to try.
Having said all that, another mistake is not building beds big enough!  Decide how big a bed you think you need, draw it out, wait a little while, than double it.  No one ever says "I wish I had more lawn” when they are removing some. 

The good news is, like with more gardening projects, you can add more later (or remove more lawn that is).

8th Street Pocket Park

The 8th Street Pocket Park is a small neighborhood park that uses native plants and landscaping to provide education and outreach to neighbors and students that my wife and I have been working on for the last couple of years. Because of its small size and out of the way location, this little piece of ground was neglected, growing only knapweed (Centaurea stoebe) and dog waste (no Latin binomial necessary). Located between an irrigation ditch and the intersection of 8th and Grant streets, the entire "park" was located in the city's right of way. A few neighbors saw an opportunity to work together and develop a wildflower garden, providing beauty and benefits to the nearby school and surrounding neighborhood.

Our goal was to build and maintain this pocket park as a little piece of wild Montana on the corner of 8th and Grant, by using plants native to the Missoula valley and to provide education & outreach to neighbors and students and a little wildlife habitat in our neighborhood. Our hope was that this park will be enjoyed by passersby, and provide a chance to stop and learn about native plants, and wildlife. To that end we developed and installed interpretive signs (see below), paths to interact and view the landscaping and installed benches to help turn this once weed patch into a destination.

In 2008, we completed the south portion (pictured in this post)of the pocket park (with significant help from a $2,000ish neighborhood grant) and we obtained a grant to complete the park this year by expanding the project by landscaping the east portion of the park. We also hope to continue the strong partnerships and neighborhood cooperation that made the first phase so successful.

The aspect of this project I was most concerned about was that as a public park, I wanted the plants to thrive, for weeding to be minimal, and for it to be a good example of native plant landscaping. My hope was that this would give people ideas for this type of landscaping in their own yards, so as a demonstration garden, this needed to look good. To that end, site preparation was essential, and we spent a lot of time on this.

The first step involved getting rid of noxious weeds through hand-pulling and herbicide treatments. The next step involved using a sod cutter to remove the "grass" (read: dog poop, quack grass, lawn, and dandelions). We installed lawn edging around the perimeter (see photo below), then removed all the sod, waited a few weeks, dug out or pulled everything that germinated, repeated this step again, brought in screened top soil, and compost mix to form hills, planted the area and covered it all with 6" of shredded cedar bark mulch.

From the time it was planted until the end of the growing season, we watered the little park every other day heavily. Since October 2008, we have not irrigated it, and have had only one weeding night. The plants have thrived and I think this has been a great public garden example.

Below part of the park is shown, August 2008, after the area was planted.
Below is a picture of the same area in August 2009, after just one year of growth.

Below is just one of several interpretive signs...Again, the same location one year later.This is one of the only "before" pictures we have. Again, you can never take too many pictures before you begin a project- I never take enough (see my lament here). Below, volunteers are installing lawn edging and laying out the split rail cedar fence, in spring 2008. This picture was taken after we removed noxious weeds, so it actually looks like a lawn here- seeing the area as a lawn, in itself, was a lot of work and represented a lot of progress.This picture is taken roughly the same location in early spring 2009, and if you look closely you can see a black-capped chickadee on the nest box. This spring a pair excavated this box and raised a clutch- success!Below is roughly the same location in August 2009- plants thrived, despite no irrigation in 2009.
Since education and outreach were our primary goals of this project, we installed several interpretive signs in this little park. These signs provide information about the history of the park, the partnerships, as well as natural history of the area and specifically about native plants and wildlife found in the park. Below are examples of two of the six interpretive signs.
Also pictured above is a National Wildlife Federation wildlife habitat sign. This park is certified as Backyard Wildlife Habitat because it incorporates the following elements: food, water, cover, places to raise young, sustainable gardening practices, native plants.

Our neighborhood is deficient in parks and open spaces. Landscaping this site transformed existing public space from an unusable state into an attractive pocket park. While the final product of this effort meets a community need (more park space), the process of creating the native plant landscape also meets community needs.

My wife has been working with the local elementary school through the Flagship Program, an after school program for neighborhood children, and has lead field trips for dozens of children to this little garden. She has gone to classrooms to teach kids about native plants, has had them grow plants that we later transplanted to the park, and has had children help pant and weed this park for the last couple of years .

This project was also shared goal of the Montana Native Plant Society and the University of Montana's natural areas integrated plant management program (my wife's program) to provide education and outreach about native plants and their conservation. Despite the small size of this park, it has addressed multiple community needs, and it is a long way from its former state of knapweed, dog waste, and neglect.

Even native plant gardens need maintenance

Even native plant gardens need maintenance. All too often I see native plants advertised as "low-" or "no-maintenance". Although it is true plants native to your area will require less maintenance than conventional, generic plants (that is, those not suited for a particular climate or locale), they do require some maintenance in a garden setting. As I often remind people, it is "xeri-scape" not "zero-scape".



Inherently, periodic care, cultivation or just maintenance defines a "garden" and distinguishes it from a natural area. Perhaps instead of "maintenance free", native plant gardens should be thought of, and referred to, as "less resource intensive". This is probably a more accurate, and appropriate descriptor, since, in their native environment, native plants do not need soil amendments, fertilizers, pesticides, protetction from hot summers or cold winters, and additional water (once established), but they do require care.

I think that the lack of attention people pay to native plant gardens does a disservice to promoting native plants as landscape alternatives, especially when the aesthetic is a departure from the accepted norm. The norm being the French or English garden of a manicured lawn, and a few specimen trees. As I have mentioned in past posts (read: ranted), native plant gardens need to be thoughtful and consider the same design elements as any landscape. Having a native plant garden is not an excuse to to have an unkempt garden.

Maintenance for a native plant garden may be for a variety of reasons including: aesthetics, "tidiness", to promote undergrowth, to deadhead and prolong the bloom (though this is not very effective in our climate since we do not water), to maintain diversity of plant species and structure, or so some flowers don't set seed.

As far as letting flowers go to seed or restricting them from seeding, I do a combination. I like to leave a lot of seed heads on plants for birds, and insects but not necessarily all of them. For example, showy fleabane (Erigeron speciosus), three-vaned fleabane (Erigeron subtrinervis), and hairy golden aster (Heterotheca villosa), and others are prolific seeders, and without management they would probably end up dominating the garden. So, in certain areas of the garden I cut them back to limit their spread. However, they are easy to grow, beautiful flowers, so I many places I am not too disappointed if they take over. Others, like blue flax (Linum lewisii) and bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata), I manage more intensively (see "What is a weed" and "Shades of blue" posts for more information).

Seeds of blanketflower (Gaillardia aristata), and many aster and erigeron species (I can't necessarily tell many of them apart), get eaten by pine siskens late in the winter. Some seeds, like balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata) and narrow-leaf collomia (Collomia linnearis), get eaten almost immediately by beetles and shield bugs.
This evening I did a lot of, what I call "non-technical" pruning. I cleared out several paths (see photos above and below) that had be overgrown by flowers, and reshaped many plants to provide depth, and diversity to the landscape. To me, this is the fun part of gardening- reshaping and redefining spaces. Plus it is fun to just experiment and "putter" about the garden.

Below is an example of hairy golden aster stems, flowers and seeds I use as a mulch. I placed the seed heads and flowers of hairy golden aster cuttings over soil in a area I just planted as a base layer of mulch. This will help hold in soil moisture, retard weed establishment and seed the area with hairy golden aster. I will add a thin top coat of shredded bark mulch to complete the planting. I have tried this a few times with hairy golden aster and it works well.

After pruning, you are left with a lot of trimmings (see photo at the top of the post) and what to do with all the plant material can be an issue and daunting. Any leafy plants, I just compost, but plants with tough or nearly woody stems I just add to the brush piles in the yard we keep for wildlife. Apart from the benefits to many wildlife species, brush piles are wonderful features in the garden to contain the surprising amount of biomass even a small xeri-scaped yard can produce.

How to remove a lawn

Why remove some lawn? Here are a few thoughts and statistics…
Lawns are now the number one irrigated crop in the U.S., covering over 40 million acres, three times the land area covered by corn and more than wheat. That is a pretty startling fact. We have gone from a nation of growing food crops to ornamental grass. The statistics on water use, maintenance costs and materials, fertilizer, and other resources for lawn care in this country is even more astounding.
For example, in the U.S.:

• 800 million gallons of gas is burned in lawnmowers every year
• 67 million pounds of synthetic pesticides are used on lawns
• 238 gallons of water/ person/ day is used during the growing season
• Outdoor watering accounts for more than half of municipal water use in most areas

From a wildlife perspective, the lawn is a barren wasteland- a monoculture that supports very little insect and animal life. The only animals and insects that do use the lawn are referred to as pests, and most are invasive, or non-native, and people in the U.S. spend millions annually to control them. Certainly, deer, robins and some other wildlife species will feed in or on a lawn, but the reason is often that there is little else left for them.

Removing all or part of your lawn and converting it anything else is one of the best things you can do for sustainable landscaping, increasing biodiversity, and fostering wildlife in your garden. The smaller your lawn, the less stuff you will need to maintain it- we get by with a small reel mower, that takes up little space, is quiet, does not need fuel, is inexpensive (compared to a gas-powered lawn mower) and is fun to use.

A lawn has its place in a yard- it is useful for a wide variety of activities, but it probably does not need to cover the amount of square footage as it currently does. We have some small lawn patches in our yard (see photo below), and they center on dining and entertaining areas, and though they are remarkably small, they can accommodate a lot of people. Also, the lawn patches are in areas of the yard that receive shade, so even though we do not water them grass grows pretty well. We have removed all the lawn from areas that receive full sun, or were otherwise difficult to grow turf grass. Examine your own yard and think of how little you could live with, and consider lawn as a luxury, indeed it is. a lawn once (and still is) a status symbol,for the aristocrats who could afford to have servants care and maintain it. Turf grass grew easily in the English climate of moderate temperatures and frequent rains. If you live in a climate that can't support a lawn without irrigation, consider the environmental effects of irrigating. Is that the best use for water?

Steps for successfully removing a lawn
Removing a lawn and keeping it away is not that simple, but not that difficult either. It takes care, prep work and patience. It can be done without herbicides or with a very limited amount of herbicides, or with a lot of herbicide if you are so inclined (though I am not). Below are several steps to ensure sucess.

Step one, cut a hole in the lawn (kidding).
Step one- Rent a sod cutter. If you have an area >100 square feet, I strongly recommend a gas powered sod cutter, if the area is smaller, you can get by with a kick style, manual sod cutter. The reason for using a sod cutter rather than a shovel is that a sod cutter removes the sod just below the rooting depth of the grass and removes very little- just a thin veneer of- soil. This saves (literally) tons of soil. Also, by using a sod cutter the sod is reusable (see below). Whereas if you were to just dig up the sod one shovel-full at a time, it is in a less desirable state for reuse. If you are really determined to use a shovel, use a square-bladed shovel and aim to just skim the sod layer off, as opposed to digging straight down.

Mark the area of sod you want to remove. Once it is marked, think about it for a few days, and probably increase the size of the new garden bed. I have never heard anyone say "I wish my garden beds were smaller", or "I sure miss mowing that part of the lawn over there." So remove more lawn than you think you will need, you will be happy you did.

Cut and roll up the lawn, and get it away. This is a very satisfying step- instant gratification.

A couple of notes here- do not try to “solarize”, cover, smother, or spray herbicide to kill the lawn. These methods take too long to be effective (if they are ever is effective at all). It just takes a small bit of grass root left behind for the lawn to come back. I am sure there are some situations where it may work, but I do not recommend it. In our climate, the lawn does not really ever die from covering it, maybe after a few years, but who really wants to spend that long. I suspect even after a few years, once it gets some rain, it will re-grow. Still if you do manage to kill it (either with herbicide or from covering it), then you still have to deal with the sod that is there- it is not like the lawn will just decompose to soil.

Once you have cut and removed the sod the best thing to do is to get rid of the lawn. I have tried composting it, turning it over, etc… It takes a really long time to break down and consumes a lot of space in the process. Even if you keep it in a covered pile, there is always the possibility it will start to re-grow.

People want sod and my advice is to give it to them.

The best thing to do is…put a "free" ad in the newspaper (so 1990’s) or Craigslist (so 2008) or MySpace (so 2009 if you under 30). People love sod, and it will be gone before you know it.

Install lawn edging to keep adjacent lawn from getting into beds (if applicable). Use the largest edging you can find (at least 5-6”).

Spot spray herbicide to any roots or things that the sod cutter missed (or dig them out). For example, sometimes the sod cutter will just knock the top off of a huge dandelion. At this point, it might be best to water the site, wait a week, and see if anything germinates, and then remove it or kill it (dig it up, apply herbicide, use a torch, or something), but often is nice to just proceed to the next step, and a lot more gratifying than having a large patch of dirt to watch for a week, while you are waiting for unwanted plants to show themselves. Add any soil amendments, if necessary – the nice thing about native plants here is you do not need this- though you may want to form hills, or raise the elevation of the newly stripped soil
Then, plant your plants- the fun part. Depending on your garden plan, I recommend adding a layer of some sort of weed mat depending on your garden plan. We like to use newspaper, or cardboard. When you lay down newspaper use several overlapping sheets and wet it with a hose to help conform to the contours of the landscape. The thing with newspaper that I like is that it will be around for a few years while things get established, but eventually it will decompose. Landscape fabric is more or less forever but it could be really useful in an area when you do not want any plants to grow (we have some under our clothesline). Finally, mulch heavily! Don’t skimp on mulch- go for an initial 4-6” application of some sort of mulch. Mulch is a really important step; mulch limits weed growth, retains soil moisture and eventually will break down (this can be good, depending on what your plan is). Some people have concerns about mulch, in particular cedar bark, acidifying he soil. I have not found this to be the case, and maybe that is due to our dry climate, but it does decompose in a few years in our yard. In our front yard prairie, we initially added a lot of mulch (see photo above), but this broke down and now you’d be hard pressed to find any (a good thing, see photo below). Mulch is critical for the first year or so to get plants established (even xeric species), and keep out weeds. Even though we chose native, drought tolerant plants, you have to plan on one season or a year (depending on when you plant stuff) in order to get plants established (that means watering and weeding), beyond that, we have not found a need to water. Mulch really limits the amount of time you will spend weeding.

Although there are many options for mulch, I recommend shredded cedar bark. This is a lumber by-product, and because it is shredded, it stays where you put it. Cedar (western red, in this case) takes longer to decompose than many hardwood mulches. In many cities, you can get free mulch from tree removal services or city arborists that chip and shred trees. In general, this sort of mulch is pretty low quality, filled with a lot of leaves, and small particles. It breaks down quickly (may blow away in a wind storm) and compresses really quickly, but for the right application, it is usually free (a great price) and it is a great use for local materials. We have rented a chipper/ shredder to grind up some shrubs and trees and used that mulch as a base layer, on to which we added shredded, cedar bark mulch. This is a good use for free, low-quality mulch.

Before and after

Our yard and gardens constantly change. That is one of the nice things about gardening and landscaping, plants grow, landscapes change and you can change them.

When we started landscaping our yard, it was mainly a lawn. All the trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses are ones we planted over the last 9 years.

We started with our front yard- the most public space and have worked or reworked areas as time and out ideas have allowed. Here are a few pictures showing some of the changes. Site preparation is essential, including removing sod, installing edging, something to control weeds (like newspaper or landscape fabric- depending on the site), mulch and careful plant selection. Typically we will water the bed or area we landscape for the first season to allow plants to get established, and beyond that they are on their own. It is critical to water to get the plants established but after the first winter we have found it is really not necessary.