removing lawn, building berms

I need any advice you guys have!
I have a large front lawn that I want gone. I want to plant my entire front yard with drought tolerant perennials. I do love the look of berms so I thought I would add them while I was ripping out the lawn.
So my plan is this:
1. Rent sod cutter and remove all the lawn.
2. Pile sod (upside down) to create berms.
3. Rototill areas around berms to loosen/mix soil then add a top soil mix to the berms.
4. Lastly, cover the entire area with weed block cloth, add 3 inches of wood mulch (even on berms) and start planting!
Will it work? Are there any hang ups that you can foresee? Any unnecessary steps that I am taking? Any necessary steps that I missed?

Great idea, but I have some practical advice from 22 years of running a small landscaping business.

1. Unless you have an aversion to herbicides, save some labor and just use RoundUp or some other glysophate generic to kill the lawn.

2. You can still pile the dead sod upside down to create berms, but it will be easier to tear up if it's dead already.

Alternatively, you could create your berms out of new, enriched topsoil since you're planning on bringing in new topsoil anyway. Saves a lot of work and expense of renting a sod cutter. Just kill the lawn and then create the berms completely out of new topsoil.

3. If the "alternative" doesn't appeal to you, rototill and add this soil to the sod berms.

4. I would strongly recommend to NOT use weed block cloth if you're going to mulch with bark, for four reasons: 1. It will not let decomposed mulch incorporate with the soil base, depriving you of "free" compost. 2. Good weed barrier is not cheap, and a pain to put down, as well as plant through. 3. Perennials will not have room to grow and expand unless you yearly enlarge the holes in the fabric, which is a real pain. 4 Most importantly, as the mulch decomposes, it will form a nice layer of humus which, although blocked by the fabric from incorporating with the soil, WILL support weed growth. You will occasionally need to add more mulch and this humus layer will get thicker and thicker, defeating the whole purpose of the fabric anyway! (The only times I use weed barrier is under rock mulch or if an area is really infested with thistle or bindweed.) I would save the expense, labor, and future headaches and just skip the weed fabric completely.

These are just my opinions, though. I've created hundreds of raised landscaped beds and berms over the years, with very satisfactory results.

Good luck and have fun!

No later than August place newspaper (at least 5 layers thick) over any grass to be rid of. Cover the newspaper with 4" to 6" of mulch. By spring the grass will be dead, plant the perennials, and enjoy.

Hoosiergreen- Thanks for all the good advice. I do have a pretty big aversion to herbicides unfortunately. However, by fall my lawn will already be dead since I refuse to water it : ) So I will rent the sod cutter and hopefully it will come up pretty easy.
I really appreciate the points you have made about the weed block. I never would have considered some of those things. You have me sold on not putting it down.
Okay so I rip the sod up, make berms and mulch everything. How many inches of topsoil would you put on the berms (on top of the sod)? Also how many inches of mulch will make a decent weed block?

Golddog, I agree smothering would be better. Since it is my front lawn I really don't want the eyesore of having it covered all winter with nothing planted. Plus I really would like to make berms and sod piling seems like an easy way to do it!

Herbaceous drought tolerant perennials will be an 'eye sore' as well. Woody perennials will not.

golddog,
Hmmmm, I guess I don't get why drought tolerant perennials would be such an eye sore. But it doesn't matter. I didn't really elaborate on all the different things I will be planting. I plan on doing a mix of plants, grasses and shrubs. Some of my favorite drought tolerant perennials are salvias. penstemons, lavendars, agastache, artemisia, dianthus, echinacea, and the list goes on.
I guess I used the term "drought tolerant perennial" to cover grasses and shrubs as well.

I'd give myself at least 6" of new topsoil in which to plant, depending on how large of container your perennials will be in. It's no fun cutting through piled up old sod, but it will decompose and be fine after a year. One question... I thought Portland would have more precipitation than ever having to worry about drought, etc. Are you having a drought? You mentioned that the grass would be dead by fall anyway.

6" of topsoil should be pretty easy to do. Thanks for your input.
And yes Portland (and all of the Northwest) is famous for rain so I understand your confusion! We tend to have a pretty hot July and August though. With temps in the 80s and 90s. To keep your lawn alive you really have to water it during these times. It usually won't die completely, but it does go dormant and green up again in the fall when the rain comes back.
We rarely have drought issues but water is such a precious resource it makes me sick to see people dumping water on lawn. I do water my plants but do it by hand with water from my rain barrels. The one exception I make is my vegetable garden. I figure the trade off in gasoline saved to ship store bought veggies to me, is worth turning on the hose occasionally to keep my veggies producing.
Thanks again!

I wish I could remove my lawn, though I'd put a food garden, pond, and something like chamomile (for when I did want somewhere to sit) in instead. But, I rent...

HoosierGreen - It depends on how dry a summer we get. Some summers we have rain weekly, others we don't have rain for months. I shudder at the thought of the latter, but it is looking that way. We had a cold wet spring, snow in May!, and since the heat came in a couple weeks ago we had one thunder storm and now no rain in sight, maybe Tuesday after tomorrow we might get some showers, if the weatherman is right. I have to heavily water my lawn right now to keep it only slightly brown.

This is part of my hatred of lawns. They take too much energy and resources, personal and global; we water, feed, mow, and baby our lawns, so they'll stay looking "good". They aren't even remotely natural in most of the areas they grow, so people curse at weeds that are just doing what they're supposed to (turning a stage 1 eco-system into a stage 3 eco-system), and then fill their surrounding area with poisons from chemical pest/herbicides and fertilizer, not to mention exhaust from the lawn mower.

I live in a housing complex. We have a center field that’s used for run off and storm overflow. It has a “wetland” in one part. Which is all very cool and I support completely, except there is so much chemical run off from people’s lawns that the frogs are having defects. Even in my back yard I can’t use the bed that makes the most sense for an herb garden, because the roadside lawn chemicals run down into that bed and I don’t want to eat pesticides.

Sorry to rant, but it’s been driving me nuts recently. Especially because my step-daughter would love to play in the “pond” but I’ve flat forbidden her to go down there. I just think it’s too dangerous.

I feel your pain zhinu. I have spent years as a renter taking care of and watering other people's lawns. Each year I grew angrier at the sheer wastefulness that lawns are. The water, chemicals, time! Not to mention the space that could be planted with flowers and shrubs that could help our bees and birds.
I just bought my first house in April. It is absolutely delightful plotting the destruction of my lawn:) I keep talking to the bumblebees and honeybees in my backyard telling them of my plan to create a heaven for them next year!

We're hoping to buy with in 5 years. We would buy now, my DH has the credit, but he's going to school, and during the school year working extremely part time, so we don't have the income. My parents would like to buy, and have the income, but not the credit.

In my dreams we get around 5 acres and put 3 or 4 houses on the corners and share the land amongst the family.

Since we have a kid though, we'll probably be looking at schools more than land, sigh! At least we'll be able to have whatever pets we want, and I can do whatever I want to the land we do have.

Little grass I do mow, gets no special treatment, and as long as it is cut evenly, looks just fine. I do dig out the broad leaf weeds.

I understand completely how y'all feel. Hubby and I used to live in a subdivision with all the chemically treated lawns around us. Exceptionally few insects of any kind, all the same things y'all are talking about here. We bought 11 1/2 acres a few years ago, built our house ourselves, and I've been slowly landscaping. We put bermuda grass because it's very drought tolerant and only needs mowing about once a week and NO watering. We left the front 5 acres as is with whatever trees were there and I've put LOT'S of trees in the 5 1/2 acres that were cleared to build our house. I'm loving having so many bees, lady bugs, butterflies and other beneficial insects. Like you dirttiger, the only thing I water is my large veggie garden and I put up lots of the stuff that I get from it. It feels good to know we're eating organic food that I grew myself. And all the birds, deer, rabbits, foxes, insects, etc., have a nice haven to share with us. We even put in a clover food plot that the deer use all winter and we get to watch them bring their little fawns out in July.

I removed all of my front lawn a year ago last January..... I've never regretted it.
We rented a sod cutter; then roto tiller and since the lawn was high and the soil would have run off to the sidewalk, we had to rent someone with a bob cat to take some of the dirt; the rest I used to create a berm along the side - between my yard and my neighbors. I put in ornamental grasses on this. Apart from the rentals we did all the work ourselves and saved a bundle (we did have the boulders delivered). I used weekblocker before putting down the path, pea gravel and mulch. It has all grown since, of course; I need to take an updated photo.

Now we also enjoy sitting on the front patio we created; a nice glass of wine in hand, listening to the distant purring of lawn mowers !!

Looks great. I'll post some before and after photos.

Here's another picture....

And another -- starting to create the berm

The end result. Since then we have added another arbor to the beginning of the path. The black edging is coming out - we just bought the light brown/beige composite edging that comes in 20" rolls. The liriope borders are also coming out this weekend as they didn't look the way I'd hoped. We've also added an inground fountain to the left of the path (facing the house), and I've relandscaped the large flower beds.

...Ok....


Afterwards someone can bludgeon me with a blunt object for asking....but what exactly is a "Berm"?

I hate beauty bark and rock yards as well, but I figure whatever works for the people who live there.

You'll probably get a more technical definition, but my flippant answer is a pile of dirt that's meant to be there and stays in one place.

We've added another arbor at the front; relandscaped the large flower beds and put an inground fountain in the left area of the path (facing).

Shadowjack -- A berm is a raised bed of soil -- no hard edging to it; just plantings. live 2 blocks from the beach so some plants just won't do well. I'm very happy with the berm though. I'll post one of that tomorrow (if it stops raining !).

Oh wow....thanks!.....That is what I am trying to accomplish in my backyard butterfly habitat....

Great photos by the way....the landscaping looks fantastic and I love the arbor

Orchid923- WOW! Thanks for all the great pics. It is great to see photos of the entire process. I can't wait to see pics of your berm.
How much of a pain was it to use the sod cutter? Did you use the sod for your berm?
After you removed the sod, how many inches of mulch did you put down?

Berm picture will have to wait -- we've had so much rain (which we really needed). My rain barrels are overflowing !
My son did the sod cutting for me -- he said it wasn't that easy as the machine just wanted to go in circles ! Now that could have been the rental machine; but I truly think it was my lawn at the time, which was very, very high and you sank down when you walked on it. It was a great looking lawn, but very difficult to mow. I believe it was years and years of thatch build-up. That was one of the reasons I finally made the decision to get rid of it all. It was St. Augustine grass, and I read recently that some counties are going to ban this grass in all new developments ! It's a water guzzler if you want it looking nice; apart from all the fertilizers, weed killers, etc.

I gave away most of the sod to neighbors and used some for the start of the berm (upside down of course). . We had to remove so much of the soil (it pained me to have most of it hauled off, but I had nowhere to put it and my neighbors didn't want any). We used the rest of the soil for the berm on top of the sod and this is where I have planted the ornamental grasses. I believe we put down at least 2-3 inches of mulch. This was put on top of weed cloth, but I didn't put any of that close to any of the palms.

Since adding more plantings I haven't found it difficult - I just scrape back some of the mulch and make a slit in the weed cloth. I know Hoosiergreen doesn't recommend the cloth; but in my case it has worked out so far. In fact my fiance just put in a fountain and had to cut out a section of the cloth. I'll take another picture of that too.

The area isn't that huge. If, over a period of time it ceases to work it isn't going to be difficult to rake some of the mulch off to one side and slice/cut the weed cloth out.

I wish I could post pictures on my computer (it does not have photo software & I'm a techno-zero), its something I have to learn!

Dirttiger, it sounds like you have a good handle on what you want to do and you have been given great advice. There is a lot of mixed reviews on weedcloth, as you have just heard!

I JUST finished the last of my project to get "rid of the grass". I did most of it in lasagna beds so I did not have to remove the grass. Some I did by hand digging out the sod and THEN covering with layers of wet newspaper, grass clippings and compost I had started. These are the areas I knew I would be planting in before grass would have a chance to break down in.

I put a path thru all of it but I do not yet know what I'm going to use. For now its just LOTS of cardboard or newspaper covered with weed cloth. I figured WHATEVER I did, I was going to need the weed cover until then anyhow. I am REALLY liking the way its turning out but I can't find something stable and inexpensive to use for the pathway. I'm ok with gravel but then I'll need something to edge it. I wish I could afford flagstone! I can't use bark because I'm going to mulch the rest of the yard and I would then not have any constrast.

The path is very curvy, what did the rest of you use for edging? For the actual path material? I should mention my yard is very small and I am VERY broke! Anything I come up with needs to be cheap!

I'm hoping that the first little walk, in the "front" yard, I will be able to complete in something nicer since it will ony need to be 17 feet long with two legs of it almost 8 feet, a very wide U, the base being the 17 feet.

I'm posting some more pix of the front yard - to show the berm mainly. You might be able to see the path edging, which is rather heavy duty black plastic edger (in a roll) that you hammer into the ground with large "pins". I had hoped the liriope would grow and fan out to hide this; but it hasn't. So, the liriope is coming out this weekend and we will be putting down "bender board" - which is what I've seen on gardening tv shows. However, our box stores have just started stocking it and it's called something like "ultra edging" - and it will look a little more aesthetically pleasing to me. Then I have to find another type of border plant.

Another photo of the front and berm area

...... and another ...

--- last one -- this is the small fountain we are putting in the front -- not finished yet.

Oops -- one more of the front, showing both arbors. The front one has a corkscrew vine growing on it - quite a pretty flower. I only planted it a couple of months ago.

Oh my goodness!! It is beautiful! All of it. I especially like the bark color echoing the color of your shutters, it all works together so beautifully! Thank you for sharing your photos of all your hard work.

psychw2 - do you have somewhere you could collect fist sized rocks? They would make a good edge for a gravel walk, would be reasonable to collect for a small yard and they're free.

I'm willing to give that a try. My husband didn't think it would contain the gravel very well.

Difficult to weed?

shouldn't be hard to weed, I have LOTS of barrier down, he just thought the gravel would escape in the gaps between imperfect fit of rocks borders.

Weed barrier works for a while, then soil and debris accumulate in the gaps; weeds appear from no where.

NOTHING will work forever, that is FOR SURE!

Soil embankments are much of the time built utilizing layers of soil and fill material like plant garbage, sand, black-top, soil, or rubble. Utilize the fill materials to fill the significant piece of the embankment, framing its shape around it utilizing soil. Solidly pack the fills to guarantee smallness.
While evaluating hills close to existing trees and bushes, never change the grade nor upset soil inside a tree's dribble line. Additionally be certain the embankment won't meddle or make potential seepage issues with water that has recently upheld the life and wellbeing of the tree.

I just reread this thread after it popped up with Beilamainte's post. I have moved twice since my first post on this thread in 2008! We did end up using rocks to border the walkways and it worked fine.
Years ago I created a border with a small trench, lined with newspaper, filled with cement and the football sized rocks pushed into it. It created a beautiful country cottage look while still reducing weeding & creating a mowing edge.
https://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1371502/ are pics of my current gardens

Thanks for noticing me psychw2 . Can you please share which post you have make 2008?

This message was edited Jul 26, 2022 5:01 AM