HOW TO KILL

SODCUTTER : Rent a sodcutter. This machine cuts the roots two to three inches deep and disconnects the grass from the soil beneath. The “rugs” of grass must then be flipped over so that the roots can be exposed to the sun and it will die. Does not work well with Bermuda grass since Bermuda grass roots go so deep and the stolons - the tiny bits of root left in the soil when you rip it out - can resprout and become new full-grown plants. The “rugs” of sod that you flip over are left on the ground as a mulch, protecting the ground beneath from getting baked by the sun. The dead sod can be moved aside whenever you need to dig and plant Pros : can kill a lawn in a day, especially bluegrass or St. Augustine Grass, leaving you with essentially a blank canvas Cons : labor intensive, sodcutter is heavy as shit.

SOLARIZATION/SMOTHERING : Cover lawn with a tarp or cardboard and mulch (need lots of mulch, like a dumptruck full). Easiest in lower-latitude hot climates like Texas. May not be possible in Eastern, higher-rainfall climates like Maryland, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, etc.

This method takes a while, which is a drag, and I’ve seen it fail. The time that it takes to die could be time that you’re spending getting native plants established. Thus I recommend the sod-cutter or just doing the bit-by-bit method.

BIT-BY-BIT : Using a “Sharp-shooter”shovel (basically a long, narrow, 3-times-longer-than-it-is-wide shovel), you come at a low angle (mimicking the flat-slab subduction of the farallon plate, for any of you geology nerds), disemboweling the turf from ground in a back-and-forth stabbing motion. This doesn’t look as nice as using a sod-cutter to rip out uniform even lines of turf, but it works. It sucks to do and is exhausting, but you only have to do it once. Then you plant your natives, dump the mulch on top of the ground (while keeping it two inches away from the stems of natives so as not to encourage rot) to smother weeds and help retain soil moisture, water them in, and you’re done.

TILLING : Only possible with grass species that do not spread by stolons, like bermuda does. Bermuda grass is extremely hard to kill and often requires constant weeding or site-specific spraying and selective, targeted applications of herbicide using a large piece of cardboard to prevent over-spraying or hitting native plants. Tilling essentially “chops up” and plows the lawn into the ground beneath. With species like Kentucky bluegrass, it works like a charm. With Bermuda, it is pointless.

EASIEST, LAZIEST (andthat’s ok) METHOD : JUST START PLANTING STUFF, WHILE CONTINUING TO WEED-WACK AND MOW THE LAWN AROUND THE STUFF YOU PLANT.

The key take-away no matter what is that after you kill the lawn, you will essentially be planting and nurturing the natives, while continuing to go in and periodically remove or weed-wack/spray/dig-up-with-a-garden-knife any remaining bits of grass that pop up. I highly suggest against using herbicide unless you have one of the very invasive and aggressive grass species like Bermuda or Kikuyu Grass. St. Augustine Grass, by comparison, is easy to remove and kill.

The process of constant maintenance works because the native shrubs you initially plant (which should be easy to grow, common keystone members of your local ecosytem) will eventually outcrowd and overgrow the invasive grasses, and you will be the disturbance force that selects for the natives and selects against the attempted re-intrusion of the grasses. After a long growing season where you have watered the natives, any competition will successfully be put at bay since the natives have taken most of the available light and root space. Once you have reached this point, very little continued maintenance is necessary, especially for prairie gardens since prairies tend to be so dense.

• 0:00 An Unusual Enemy
• 5:18 Monsanto’s Secret Poison Problem
• 11:17 Vietnam and Agent Orange
• 14:08 Roundup
• 19:31 How Monsanto controls seeds
• 24:20 ADVERTISEMENT
• 26:02 The Crop Mafia
• 31:10 The Monsanto Papers
• 41:18 How dangerous is Roundup really?

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/37264540

Using friendship-based community organizing and principles of permaculture, gift economy, and mutual aid, Food Not Lawns has been turning yards into gardens and neighborhoods into communities since 1999, when we were conceived by the Food Not Bombs family in Eugene, Oregon. For more than twenty years small, self-organized groups of grassroots gardeners have been organizing local seed swaps, joining together for garden work parties, and making lots of friends while learning more about the simple act of growing food can radically improve your home, your community, and your life.

Part 2 - Roundrock Texas Lawn Kill - How to Install Drip Irrigation Line for Native Plants

archived (Wayback Machine)

re:wild your campus co-directors Mackenzie Feldman and Sheina Crystal discuss their amazing initiative across college campuses, suggest pesticide free options for your lawn, and answer some of your questions about pesticides!

The title is perhaps hyperbole, but back in 2018...

Only in artificial settings do you see grass. Grass doesn't exist in nature

So, what we must do is we must replicate nature in our gardens. How do we do that? Well first what we do is we remove all the grass from our backyards

get rid of ALL the grass. And when you get rid of all the grass, you basically have a system that's now ready to start gardening or farming

So this system has no grass, so you don't have to keep chopping, you don't have to keep pulling weeds; there's absolutely no grass… okay?

This guy may have been onto something.

Cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21571852

Another example: https://lemm.ee/post/64307085

archived (Wayback Machine)

Over 12 expert-led weekly challenges, transform your lawn into a vibrant ecosystem teeming with life. Discover simple techniques to create habitat that butterflies, birds, and beneficial insects can't resist. Ready to turn your patch of earth into something extraordinary?

Live Kickoff on May 1st @ 12 pm est / 9 am pst

Featuring Doug Tallamy
Renowned Ecologist,
Founder of Homegrown National Park

• Weekly Challenges
• Expert Speakers
• Free Land Assessment
• Prizes & Badges

Sign up for this free challenge at lesslawnmorelife.com

When Sara Weaner Cooper and her husband bought their first home in Pennsylvania, they knew they didn't want a perfectly manicured front lawn like their neighbours. They wanted something that was more than just turf – a flourishing, wild meadow home to diverse species of plants and animals.

Weaner Cooper had always wanted to focus on native plants in her lawn and do less mowing, so rewilding their front lawn felt like the right move. But the Coopers' lawn is a different animal than her father's. It's in full Sun and consisted of over 1,500 sq m (16,000 sq ft) of turfgrass – narrow-leaved grasses designed to look uniform that had to be dealt with before a meadow could fully take over.

Rather than rip everything up and live with a drab, brown lawn for months, they decided to try strategically seeding and planting native plants into the existing turf, hoping it would eventually weed the turf out naturally. "It's easier in the sense that you don't need to be beating back as many weeds," explains Weaner Cooper. "The native plants came in so thickly that they outcompeted a lot of the weed pressure that would have been there if we would have just made it brown."

It took about two years, lots of planning, some careful weeding, and some trial and error, but eventually a medley of waist-high native plant species blanketed their vast front lawn.

https://archive.ph/fno9c

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/28682830

What could be more indicative of a thirst for power and control than a perfectly level, uniform expanse of grass? Clearly, only someone with fascist tendencies would aspire to such impeccable orderliness, attempting to impose their oppressive standards on nature itself. Because nothing says "I want to dominate the world" quite like the pursuit of a weed-free lawn.

Consider the process of maintaining a lawn. It's essentially an exercise in subjugation. Mowing down innocent blades of grass week after week, enforcing a uniform height – it's like a tiny dictatorship being played out in your front yard. And let's not even mention the chemical warfare that goes on behind the scenes – those pesticides and fertilizers are the secret tools of aspiring autocrats, seeking to eliminate any form of diversity (read: weeds) in their quest for homogeneity.

But the plot thickens when we consider the boundary lines. The quintessential white picket fence, meticulously aligned with the driveway, serves as a clear metaphor for the barriers these so-called "lawn fascists" wish to erect between themselves and the rest of the world. Heaven forbid a dandelion or, heaven forbid, a clover should breach these sacred borders! It's not just a lawn, it's a fortified buffer zone against any hint of dissenting plant life.

And let's talk about the water consumption. While the rest of us worry about global water shortages and environmental sustainability, these lawn-loving authoritarians are apparently convinced that the well-being of their turf is of paramount importance. Are they hoarding water to fuel their nefarious plans for world domination? It wouldn't be surprising – every power-hungry despot needs a well-hydrated base of operations.

In conclusion, the evidence is irrefutable: anyone with a lawn is a fascist. The quest for a pristine lawn represents a disturbing desire for control, uniformity, and domination over the natural world. So, the next time you see a neatly trimmed yard, just remember – behind that innocent facade of green lies a potential dictator in the making, plotting to impose their authoritarian rule, one well-timed sprinkler cycle at a time.

Started working on this area underneath a tree last spring. Common blue violet, eastern columbine and wild geranium make up the groundcover.

I planted Virginia spiderwort too, but the cottontails feasted on them 🐇

And an update on my violet post from last year. They're filling in this area nicely under the elderberry:

A few years ago I saw a post about permaculture from u/Suuperdad that inspired me to create this sub. I had no idea what it would turn into. Yesterday I got this lovely email about our website that in all honesty, I forgot existed. It was made during the great Reddit migration and has been kind of forgotten about until today.

Never in a million years did I expect an email like this or, my co-workers to know my subreddit or, my new significant other to lose his mind when he found out I started this sub. Even if you don't think you're going to change the world, you might. This is a reminder to fight for what you believe in, make positive changes in your life, and do what's right. Maybe it will have a snowball effect, maybe it won't. Either way you'll be changing your own life.

I want to make a special shout out to my amazing mod team over on Reddit who does amazing work not just in moderating but in contributing resources, setting up really cool things like the Doug Tallamay AMA and just overall being really great humans that I enjoy chatting with. I have an amazing mod team over on discord and here on Lemmy too that I can't thank enough for the hard work they put in and a special thanks to the host of Solar Punk for hosting the Lemmy instance we use.

This community exists because we all want to see a change in the world and we're doing it. Sincerely, thanks for being here with me everyone. I love this community so much!

A french article about a juridic process that allow regular people to protect the nature in they gardens, or houses...

The article is in french. Feel free to use a translator.

Here is a link without paywall : https://archive.ph/iswqt