Hi. I'm taking out the grass and putting in a low water, environmentally friendly front yard garden. Lots of salvias and other stuff to attract beneficials and hummingbirds. We're doing it ourselves, including building the berms and laying the pathway. Anyone ever tackle something like this themselves? If so, I may need some advice. THanks.
Front yard garden - NO LAWN!!!!
I can only tell you what my better half tells me when I get frustrated looking at the massive amount of property I have yet to tame.
"It's like eating an elephant, just take one bite at a time and don't think about the whole elephant".
I did this (on a small scale) in my side yard. Zone 8 clay soil. The side yard is partial shade.
The first thing I did was remove all the grass (not difficult in this spot due to low grass growth) I did this manually with a sharp rake and shovel. Be sure to get your electricity, gas lines, and sewer lines marked by the respective utility companies. I then manually tilled the area with a garden claw and shovel. On a larger scale, I would definitely use a power tiller and other power tools.
Then I built the path. There are many options including gravel, mulch, bender board method with pavers or stones, stepping stones etc. I chose to lay down a stepping stone path with large flagstones (very easy). I put down a flagstone and marked the perimeter with a shovel and then cut out a bit of dirt under the individual flagstone areas. I partially filled in that area with construction sand to make the flagstones level and sturdy. Then I stamped on the area to make it flat, then put the flagstone on top. Then covered the flagstone with the sand and ran water over the flagstone to wash the sand into any cracks. You could just plop down the large flagstones on the earth without any digging or sand (most famously displayed on Gardening by the Yard HGTV).
Then I dug a narrow 1/2 inch trough next to the flagstone path and built a border ( I used a thin fake stone interlocking fence border to maximize my planting bed space---very easy) If I had more space (like you do) I would build a nice small retaining wall made of stone (about 8 inches high).
Then I filled the planting bed with planting mix, peat moss, compost etc.
Then plant what will work in your zone and light conditions. On your larger scale you will have many other options including water features, rocks, sitting area.
The small scale job took two weekends 6 hours a day.
If you are doing a lot of this work yourself definitely stretch, drink lots of water, take frequent breaks, use proper lifting techniques.
Enjoy.
about 15 years ago I did away with all the lawn that was the 'yard' because it took soooooo much water to keep it going. To me it was such a waste of a precious resource. It takes a lot of sweat but it was well worth the effort. I used local rock that I located in the hills surrounding the area. The one thing that I would suggest .... if you have problems with ground rodents and tunnels use some hardware cloth before you build up the area. I wish I had done that. Moles tend to push dirt thru the cracks of rocks even if there are plants growing in them. The hardware cloth will keep them from coming up into the garden itself and disturbing the plants. I use decomposed granite for the walkways nice compaction, easy to rake leaves off, the only drawback to using DG is when it's wet it will track into the house(But for me it is better than the red silty clay dirt that I have)
Here is the only picture that I have on computer .... This is the place I put all the houseplants for the summer ..
DebiV
Hi Mary,
Last summer we made a huge garden in our front yard, (http://spaces.msn.com/krystinesblog/blog/cns!92FABED581CEC326!180.entry) , laid down a flagstone path to our front door (http://spaces.msn.com/krystinesblog/blog/cns!92FABED581CEC326!250.entry) and then in the fall, put down a low-maintenance/no-water/no-mow "eco-lawn" (http://spaces.msn.com/krystinesblog/blog/cns!92FABED581CEC326!296.entry)
I didn't dig up the grass for the garden space -- I laid down thick pieces of cardboard I got from the local appliance shop and then watered the heck out of it and had the dump truck dump all the dirt on top. (http://spaces.msn.com/krystinesblog/blog/cns!92FABED581CEC326!188.entry). (I do admit to using Roundup to kill the rest of the grass for the lawn seed install though!)
To be honest, it was a huge job... but like the previous poster said, if you just do one chunk at a time, it won't seem so overwhelming.
Good luck to you! :)
Thanks for all your input. I'm taking it one step at a time.
Mary,
You might want to pick up the book by Liz Primeau called "Front Yard Gardens: Growing More than Grass." (I found a used book on Amazon so it was relatively inexpensive.) It has a ton of pictures as well as plant lists... I'm going to be using it as sort of a guide as I wend my way through the no-lawn process.
Just a thought! :)
Kristine
Oh boy, I love this concept, so far we have only done this in the backyard. The front is next, we are waiting for the city to redo the road and put in the sidewalks before we do our landscaping.
In the backyard we used some decomposed granite (DG) for the path ways and did kill all the grass. It is a long hard job, but after you get it done, you will love the weed free/grass free no maintenance yard. Here is a section that has been done this way with mostly cactus and succulents that replaced the grass. We purchased a couple of tons of river rock too. This area is now almost one year old. I am dying to landscape the front in kind of the same way, but hopefully have a little more knowledge and expierence than this first try.
Wow! That looks beautiful. You designed it yourself? I had to hire a designer, as I am not the creative type. It looks so much better than just a boring front lawn.
I too have just started to re-do my front yard - working on getting rid of what's left of the Bermuda grass (I let it dry up) and having a drip system put in. I am using drought-tolerant plants throughout most, with just a small "oasis" near the front door for some "wetter" stuff like blue plumbago, Mexican evening primrose & some bulbs. The Xeric area with the drip line will let me try lavender, some prostrate rosemary, natal plum, silver bush convolvulus, low stuff like that, in planting areas separated by crushed granite. I have a small Eucalyptus spathulata and a small Sohpora secundiflora "Silver Peso" (blooming!), also red yucca (hesperaloe something) and eremophila racemosa. I also have some Indian hyacinth, and aloe vera which is on the march all over the place.
But the back yard will have to have a pond for me, and some grass for my daughter & the dogs. Oh well, at least I can feel environmentally virtuous about the front.
And do consider a tiller. I borrowed an electric one small enough to fit in the trunk of my compact car. It made a huge difference.
Yeah, I know I need to till. First I have to kill this wretched Bermuda grass that doesn't seem to want to die. My plants consist of alot of salvias, coprosma repens, giant feather grass, an area strictly for annuals (so I can have some variation throughout the seasons), ceanothus, pomegranate (yummy), echinops, achillea. For my annual section, this time I'm planting Nigella (love in a mist). It's good to know there are other people who want to do something good for mother nature.
Yeah! I don't have the "lawn gene" so we are getting rid of our front yard lawn later this year! I intend to put in beds and plant a veggie garden there next year. Not xeriscaping, but better than the lawn.
Hi Mobi: Our yard is now in the works. My burms are in and the pathway has been dug out. I have to make a few adjustments, but I can't wait to start planting. I'm going to throw some veggie plants in with the permanent plantings. I've started some eggplant in pots on my front porch. It's fun to be different.
It takes patience to kill Bermuda grass, in our experience. We sprayed three times, watering in between, over a spring/summer period. It was amazing how that stuff would try to come back even after concentrated Roundup sprayings. Built the hardscape, brought in new compost (soil is a horrible adobe clay), then installed a lot of container plants -- I'm the impatient sort who wants instant results, LOL -- for quick 'curb appeal.'
Our garden website, with a full complement of photos (suitable ONLY for broadband, I'm afraid), is at:
https://home.comcast.net/~j.komatsu/
Mind you, our garden, although it saves water and provides flowers all year long, doesn't add great value to the property. We think about this because of a couple of recent Net discussions, since we are considering possibly selling our home in the next couple of years. Most potential homebuyers would consider the gardens too high-maintenance. Still, I will keep them as they are as long as I can, since I love them and enjoy taking care of the gardens!
This morning one of my smarty pants neighbors asked if we were building a motocross area in our front yard. Since all that's there are the burms and walkway, I guess they can't picture the finished product and can't picture anything but grass. Sad, eh?
Understandable, though -- we once had a RE agent come over to appraise our property, and she said that most people just can't imagine something that isn't already there. We had been thinking of replacing our cracked concrete deck with something nicer, like wood or one of the wood composites. But the agent told us to do it only if we wanted to, it wouldn't add any value to the property at all! She said that since there was something (the concrete) there already, potential buyers could imagine putting in something nicer for themselves. This amazed and surprised us, but she was an experienced, successful agent and gave us excellent advice.
Your neighbors will probably be impressed and surprised once they see your finished yard, particularly once it's grown in a bit and filled up. It's just hard for many people to visualize a finished garden when all that's evident at the moment is plain 'ole dirt, I guess!
Great idea, getting rid of the nusance grass. I have to deal with mine for now. I have begun concentrating on my living space backyard so I have a place to goto and relax when things get hecktick, when I finish or get close to finishing I will start on the front yard. I will have to draw up plans and plant list and get it approved by the homeowners Association before I begin, first. then I can get rid of the nusance grass stuff. Less watering for me means nore relaxing in my new living space in the backyard.
Good luck on your front yard mary.........
calvin
Thanks!!!!!
I started reading this a while back but forgot to watch it. I didn't change anything, just my place of residence and my zone.
My land was a partially wooded sand hill and still is. A lawn is a good thing to keep sand out of the house, but the water it takes to maintain it is horrendous.
When I had my house put in I decided I DID need grass for my dogs, so I am planting any kind of grass seed that will show some sign of growth here. That's in the back yard, inside the dog fence.
The rest of the yard, however, is a different story. All we had to do was have the immediate area bulldozed to allow the house to be brought in and then I went from there.
I have just natural pathways leading around the front yard, wide enough to accomadate the garden cart. My original plan was to put in ornamental grasses of different colors and heights. Then plant some salvias in between so I could have some color.
Although I have gotten off track a little at times looking for immediate gratification in annuals, I think the plan has gone pretty well. I am even trying to keep some Florida Native plants here, going so far as to moving them in from the field or road swale. To some gardeners though, the wide variety of plants can be overwhelming, making it hard to focus on any given theme. But this happens to be my gardening style.
My garden is very young, but I hope given time, it will grow up to be as wonderful as Gourds.
I still have to do some watering, but eventually the plants will have to adapt to the conditions here, or not.
Molly,
Your place is just grand!
I would have gotten rid of all of my grass if it weren't for our local restrictions, but I'm just as pleased, cause most of my back is 'grass-be-gone' now, and we're working on the side of the house, (picture below). It's taking longer than I would like because of the heat, and dh and I need to be careful cause of our health conditions.
BTW, remember I told ya.......imitation is the best form of flattery.......see, I told ya we were going to get those arbors.......:) :)
Grace, I'm so happy to see you here!!!! That arbor was a great deal wasn't it?
I wondered how your plan was going. Please keep us posted on the progress.
Molly
:^))))
I think I'm going to have to go this route myself. I live in drought-prone Colorado, and I don't have to worry about removing the grass in my front yard because there really ISN'T any. I'm sure the neighbors would like me to do something with it. It looks pretty bad right now. The task does sound overwhelming. Xeriscaping is very popular in Colorado, but I do want something more than rocks and cactus.
Here's my ugly yard. That's not my boat, btw.
Hey, that looks like my front yard!
We are planning to put in raised beds later this summer. I am through with lawns!
Folks in our neighborhood spend so much money on their lawns, and I admit, I was guilty of that same habit, but as the years go by, more and more of my lawn is being converted into native flower beds. The more flowers, the better......and vines.........oh.......those vines.........I just love them!
I will keep the grass in the very front, but the sides and back are all being converted. It's taken a lot of hard work, and we're holding off till the cooler weather sets in.......just too hot right now.
I would love to have a green lawn but I guess I don't have that gene. Plus the drought in recent years killed most of it. So I decided I needed an easy alternative. Water is at a premium here in Colorado and I have noticed many people taking out their lawns and doing something else instead.
you could alway chose one the the xeriscape field grasses that don't take as much maintence.
Mobi, I've noticed the same thing. Very few traditional, green suburban lawns. A lot of dead lawns, like mine, a lot of rocks and mulch, groundcover, shrubs, and a lot of lawns in transition, ground dug up or covered with plastic.
I had envisioned a nice, green lawn like the ones in the Midwest, where I'm from, but xeriscaping can be very striking, too. My next door neighbor took out his lawn in favor of rocks, shrubs, and raised flower beds.
My neighbor had buffalo grass but it was brown most of the summer so he took that out and went with rock and shrubs. I'm just tired of the hassle.
About the buffalo in CO - how long did your neighbor try it? Was it the first year? It takes a while for buffalo to establish, but once est., it is quite xeric in comparison to trad. lawn and some gardens. Also, I am finding it is important to get seed, plugs, or sod from as close a source as possible.
Where I live it is necessary for most plants. For some reason, they just don't do well if not grown locally, even if they are native locally.
However, I am a major fan of growing gardens full of plants that attract birds and butterflies of all kinds. Giving back some richness to the landscape that help local b&b's to survive growing suburbia.
He had buffalo grass for about 3 years and hated it because it greened up very late in our season so was only green about 2 - 3 months out of the year. The rest of the year it looked brown and very unattractive. Which is probably why it's not popular here despite its xeric properties.
There are new cultivars that green up earlier and stay green longer.
Still, blooms with butterflies on them are nicer to look at than an expanse of green.
Hope you and your neighbor can find something that works.
Just joined so here is my first post. I am halfway through going lawnless in the front yard. I live in a ChemLawn kind of neighborhood so get some pathetic looks, but I refuse to give up. The problem is a mature maple on the north side of the house that looks great, offers tons of shade, and add "curb appeal" but makes gardening almost impossible. I gave up on the parking strip - nothing but bark there - and sadly watch my perennials struggle through the heat and drought while competing with maple roots. One side gets full sun until 1:00 pm then shade and the other is in shade all day. The sun side is planted in thyme and assorted zeric plants. The other side is what remains of my lawn: a scrubby, sad little patch with lousy compacted soil and the shallow roots of the maple. Forget about balance and design, At this point I just want to find something that will grow. Any ideas?
hello Idvogt,
Got one suggestion. Build raised beds around the area you want and fill them in with dirt and then bury the new plants (pot and all) in the dirt. The tree roots can not go through the plastic pots, no one sees the pots cuse they are buried and, when you are ready for a little change you can pull out 1,2,3, or more pots and repot or drop new potted plants in their place. Does this make sense?
This technique allows you to grow various plants with different soil needs together. Creating unlimited possibilities.
calvin
IDVOGT: Check out High Country Gardens' website. The plants are specifically for the southwest and take the heat. My front yard still has a few years before it looks lush. Now, there are two berms with tiny plants and a pathway in between with some boulders. High Country gives you loads of possibilities and they even have "preplanned " gardens that you can buy for a reasonable price. Just follow the plans. They have one called "the inferno strip" which should work in your parking strip area.
Look up INVASIVE PLANTS on dg plant talk, aug 6th 06 NASTY GRASS, This is the best way I found to attack grasses.
thanks for the advice. i am going to take on raised beds but am at a loss as to where to procure cheap - as in free - good quality, realtively weed free soil - since i have none to dig up and move in my yard. Usually i turn the sod then build up lasgne style with whatever organic matter i can find and throw in a bag or two of over-priced soil conditioner. The maple roots prevent any but the most limited, sweaty, cursed-filled digging efforts. Any ideas?
Construction sights and free ads, green sheet or pennysaver,free classified adds often offer soil and it often says weed free you haul, also you can place a free add if you have access to them requesting weed free dirt. Even if it isn`t weed free and your starting a raised bed you have plenty of time to put a lot of preemergent stuff in first or short term soil killer, the 3 or 6 mo. kind if you are really despirate.
I will try that - thanks. I love it when big dump trucks squeeze into my driveway and dump piles of brown stuff!
I aspire to see big dump trucks squeeze in my yard. I hope soon.