I am seriously considering killing off the rest of my front lawn. There isn't very much of it left, but what there is just breeds weeds and invasive grass that needs to be chopped up weekly with a weed whacker because the areas between beds are too narrow to mow. I'm so new to this gardening thing that I don't really know the names of all the nastiness growing in my lawn, but there are several distinct "problem plants" that I feel like I'm in a losing battle against. Some are vines, some are grass-like, and some are weird and spikey....all of them have very deep roots and grow like...ahem...weeds.
Considering this is my FRONT lawn, and that all of my neighbors have nice, green, landscaped lawns I do feel kind of bad about it, but I just don't think I can take the hours of pulling invasive stuff from the edge of all my veggie beds each week. I can't even have straw mulch because now my tomato plants are being climbed by the horrid vining weed from under the straw. I have to remove all of it from the bed to find the spots where the vines are rooted.
My plan is to put down weed cloth and then pine mulch on all of the grass. I may start with layers of newspaper first to guarantee that the whole thing is smothered. This project isn't happening until I'm done with the actual planting, so check back around early July for details.
Considering this is my FRONT lawn, and that all of my neighbors have nice, green, landscaped lawns I do feel kind of bad about it, but I just don't think I can take the hours of pulling invasive stuff from the edge of all my veggie beds each week. I can't even have straw mulch because now my tomato plants are being climbed by the horrid vining weed from under the straw. I have to remove all of it from the bed to find the spots where the vines are rooted.
My plan is to put down weed cloth and then pine mulch on all of the grass. I may start with layers of newspaper first to guarantee that the whole thing is smothered. This project isn't happening until I'm done with the actual planting, so check back around early July for details.
I say rip it out. When I lived in Squirrel Hill all my neighbors would bring their dogs down to MY yard to go to the bathroom (and not always 'pick up'). Looking back now, I sure wish I had torn it out so they would have had to keep moving. I would much rather see someone using the ground for growing food than just growing green useless grass.Good Luck.
ReplyDeleteUgh, people who don't pick up their poop are like my personal peeve. It's bad enough when it's on a trail or something, but not getting it off of someone else's lawn is totally unforgivable.
ReplyDeleteWe're thinking about chopping down our front hedge and replacing it with blueberry bushes as well, so maybe we'll do it all at the same time just to get all the gasping and gawking over with. Of course that probably means we'd have to wait until fall...