We have finally emancipated ourselves from the HOA's and are building on a 2 acre lot...partially cleared with native hardwoods. We have a large area that has full western exposure and very little shade that will be for our septic system (3600 sq.ft.) but we want to plant over the system with appropriate native shrubs, flowers and, if possible, some short rooted trees that won't reach the septic system but can partially obscure the significant steps to the front porch. The system will be buried 3' in depth. See pictures that show septic area in red. We are thinking several winding paths to/from a central point in this front yard (gazebo? sitting area? water feature?) to add interest then plantings to accent paths. Thinking clover/yarrow for basic ground cover...HELP!

Aerial - House is at top of hill looking downward to creek area

I want to get started on converting a part of my lawn to a native ground cover. It is a Mostly sunny area. In west Georgia zone 8a. Slight slope on the yard so I want to get some natives to hopefully help hold on to the ground to prevent some washout.

A couple weeks ago I overseeded my lawn with microclover. I now have a yard with a little microclover and a lot of stinging nettle. I assume there was cross contamination in the seed bag, as the company also sells stinging nettle. Needless to say, I'm pissed, but also worried about the yard as I have dogs that love to roll in it. Any suggestions on removal? Do I scrape the whole yard and redo? Or just spot treat as much as I can?

Hello, I'd like to ask you to help me with a project. I'm a master's student in entrepreneurship and I need your help to carry out an in-depth study for a group project. Could you help me by giving me some of your time and completing this questionnaire? We'd like to target people with a passion for gardening.

This link is a form for people with irrigation systems:

https://forms.gle/Dx6ZihCj8Cy5omCA6

This link is a form for people who don't have an irrigation system for watering their plants:

https://forms.gle/Sfuzvs8qDuPxx9YH7

I’m in Northern California looking to plant some native grasses in one area of my back yard. I’d like a little “meadow” that could be walked on. Any advice on what variety?

I’m doing some work on my landscaping in Northern California. I’d like to get some woodchips to discourage weeds growing in the pathways. I also want to do some sheet mulching in one area before planting some new native plants. What type of wood chips and mulch should I be looking for.

I just removed comment on my own post that was a little fishy. The account was a few days old and it was pushing the same product on multiple subs. If you find more of these, please report them and we will do our best to remove them.

I'm in Normandy, northern France.

4 years ago I began attempting to establish a wildflower meadow in a small field on my property.

I think it was a mistake - the wrong project for this particular piece of land.

This winter I am trying one last time and if the results are still poor next spring/summer, I'll want to try a different project.

The problem is dominant grasses overwhelming anything that germinates. It quickly creates a dense 'thatch' of soil cover and blocks light. I keep on top of it with a scythe until the wildflowers begin to germinate.

I believe that the problem is that under the meadow I have an artificial reed bed, into which my septic tank drains. The system cleans the water 'naturally' and ejects it into the ground, so the heavy clay soil is always quite moist and grass growth is extremely rapid.

3 years ago I sowed yellow rattle, which is parasitic on grass roots. It established quite well. You could see much less grass in the patches where there was plenty of yellow rattle. But, the moment the rattle goes to seed, the grasses take over.

The only plant that has done well is lesser knapweed, which establishes a brilliant display (humming with pollinators) during the summer months.

But this is to one side of the area where the clean water soaks back, so the ground is drier there and I've been unable to establish knapweed in the main part of the meadow.

Solutions I've tried included literally rolling the thatch up, like a carpet, and putting it in a corner where I leave the garden cuttings. That exposes the soil for wildflower seed sowing, but still the grasses return first.

2 years ago I dug 18 inches down and turned all the sods over, hoping to kill the grass, as per a YouTube video I'd seen. It made no difference.

I don't want to use weedkillers. It's a pretty good environment for spiders, small mammals and I'm getting salamanders and toads now.

This winter I'm scarifying several patches and will sow native wildflower seeds from a specialist supplier quite a bit more aggressively than before. I have 1kg to sow in an area probably 100 square metres. Yes, I do roll the seeds into the ground each year.

This is the problem.

Ripping this up removes a lot of soil too

This is the area I'm working on.

This is the area I'm working on

Believe it or not, in the picture above I've removed about 10 barrowloads of thatch from the area in the foreground and there is still very little soil visible.

To scarify some areas this time I'm going to try strimming the ground itself - again, following a YouTube video where the guy seemed to have success.

What I'm asking the group for is suggestions for approaching this differently if it doesn't go well this time.

I'd plant an orchard, but most of that area has a network of pipes about 10 inches below the surface.

The objective is to make a great environment for wildlife and especially pollinators.

I don't know how anyone can stand it. There is no peace and quiet in town because if there isn't yard work going on somewhere, there is construction or road work. It's ridiculous

Anyone have experience on how to remove/minimize weeds, eg plaintain, false strawberry, after planting clover? Looks as though chemical options aren’t great-they kill clover to.

I have a lawn with grass (in zone 7a) that I'm trying to kill so I can plant natives. I was going to sheet mulch with cardboard but it seemed difficult to get clean enough cardboard so I'm just collecting leaves from the neighborhood into a 6 inch layer. Then I'm going to add compost on top of that and then wood chips from ChipDrop.

My question is will the leaves be sufficient to kill the grass?

Very new here.

I have an all dirt lawn right now that gets green with a bunch of different random ground cover plants (including weeds) when the rains come in the winter. Then it dies out in the summer goes back to dirt. Do I need to till the soil or use fertilizer or mulch to make the soil ready for dichondra?

I pulled up a bunch of dead weeds yesterday and ran a handheld plow/rake through the soil. Made it a moist so I could actually get in there a bit, but I probably only kicked up .5 - 1 inch of dirt.

Because my yard gets green every winter on its own with just rain, does that mean my soil should be good to go to plant dichondra? Or do I need to do something to it first? I read I should plant it on “well-prepared, well drained soil,” but I don’t know what that means.

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Hello! I work for an ecological landscape company and we are trying to create a form to collect data on the meadows we create. So far I have these observational points included on the form.

Date Time Temp Weather Objectives for today's visit Age of meadow What is in bloom? Have you observed any new plant species ( native and non-native) What wildlife did you observe?

Mammals Insects Birds Amphibians Reptiles

Take aways and reminders for next visit

I would love to hear any additional thoughts and points you all think should be included. Thanks!

I just bought 5 acres, with probably half of it being lawn. I want to eventually minimize mowing (I know I’ll still have to sometimes.) Can I just throw clover seeds? Are there any other low growing ground cover/low wildflower seeds that are native to the Midwest (6a) that would work?

I don’t want to rake the leaves in my garden beds and under tree canopies. I’d like to leave them there for the bugs this winter. However, I don’t want them blowing into my neighbors yards and making more work for them. How do you keep the leaves in place more or less?

Alright, friends, I've had it. I can't listen to my neighbors mow, blow, chainsaw, and mulch their way into my eardrums and personal space anymore. Coming at me from all directions, at any given point, are the sounds of the degradation of the natural environment and the promotion of colonial ideals.

If I ever own land myself, you better believe it will be a massive field of wildflowers. But until then, where can I go to avoid this? Willing to move to the desert where there are no trees or grass to cut. Also willing to travel back in time to a pre-hand held power tools era.

I hope to get this built by spring. Please share any thoughts on how to improve it!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/earthscape/earthscape-transform-your-yard-with-native-plants?ref=user_menu

Hello! New to NoLawns and partitioning off part of the lawn to plant native pollinators. I was raking leaves today, and raked the leaves over where we plan to plant next spring, but now I'm wondering if I should have put down the cardboard first.

I have the cardboard ready to go and was going to put it on top of the leaves. Should I try to get it under the leaves? Or am I overthinking it, and will enough of a leafy layer be good enough?

Thanks!

Zone 6B

So our front yard is all grass, and we have plans to convert it to a mix of mulch beds for native bushes, walkways, and some clover/bee lawn.

We only have enough time/energy/money to do this bit by bit, so we are trying to figure out our order of operations.

Should we focus on the mulch beds and bushes and walkways first and then covert the remaining lawn?

Also, would we have to completely remove the existing grass and then reseed with the clover/bee lawn? Or can we just keep seeding each season over the grass and let it slowly take over?