KILL YOUR LAWN! (Creating the Meadow: construction)

There are a number of ways to kill your lawn and plant a meadow- sadly... none are very easy.  The biggest challenge to planting native grasses and wildflowers from seed is weed control.  Weeds will out compete your natives and you will have a weed garden.  DOH!

On our back hillside, I tried probably the easiest method- solarization.  Putting black or clear (if in a hot enough area) plastic down to use the sun heat to cook the weeds and hopefully kill the seeds.  I watered to germinate the weeds after raking up the wood chips and then put down black plastic for a few months.  I had limited success.  The biggest problem that I have in the back are sourgrass weeds.  It is actually not a grass but a clover with a pretty yellow flower.  Problem is that it is a bulb and so solarizing doesn't work as the bulbs withstand any heat.  The hillside is also not in full sun so that it didn't ever really get hot enough either.  But it did seem to help, at least a little.

For our front lawn, however, I didn't want to put black plastic out for months on end and torture our neighbors so that left a couple other options.  One was to use Round-Up and kill the weeds.  I don't hate Round-Up.  As far as herbicides go- it is a miracle in that it really has phenomenally low toxicity and doesn't bioaccumulate or linger.  It is a whole other post on why Round-Up is bad... and why using it has problems... but let's leave it at regardless of what I think about the relatively amazing benign nature of such an effective herbicide... suffice it to say that I really didn't want to poison my lawn.

I chose to do a type of sheet composting method- this is really great and pretty creative, but by no means my idea.  Seedling roots are really really tough and good at going through things.  Hence rock being broken by roots (along with foundations).  But the seedling shoots are really pretty delicate and not evolved to be the tough tunnelers.  A simple way of converting lawn (and works for veggie gardens on lawns too) is simply to put down layers of newspaper and cover with clean dirt.  Plant directly on the dirt or compost and the roots go down through the newspaper as it degrades and the shoots of the weeds below can't come up.  The lawn smothers under the lack of sun and the plants on top thrive.  This is the method I chose.

I picked out the top soil from our local landscape supply and my only concern is that the soil is TOO nice.  Natives actually like crummy soil and don't need fertilizing and compost.  This nursery blend was so heavenly that I am a bit worried it is too rich for the natives.  Time will tell.  Anyway, since the lawn was about 1,000 ft2, I didn't want to have that many newspapers, so I bought paper mulch.  It is brown paper on a big roll and thicker than newsprint so you can use one sheet.  Since I didn't want the dirt mounded up along the sidewalk (and I was using 2-3" of dirt on top of the paper), I dug out the sod around the perimeter of the lawn and around all the landscape boulders.  ALSO- even though the lawn will not come up through the paper, it will come up around the paper.  Digging away the sod at the edges saves you weeding escapee lawn later.

I started by mowing several times to end up getting it as short as a putting green.  I then set to work on the edges with a spade shovel to cut the sod and a flat shovel to lift it out.  After digging up the edges (I used the leftover sod to fill part of a big planter box, placing the sod upside down and then later covering with leftover nursery blend), I then put down the paper and started shoveling.  I had ordered 11 cubic yards of soil and a ton of decomposed granite.  The granite was to be used for making a "hiking path" through the meadow.

Digging up sod is NOT easy- next time I might rent a sod cutter! 

I worked in sections, first laying down the paper and then shoveling dirt on top.  The hardest parts were around the rocks and in making the "hiking path".  To make the path, I put the DG (decomposed granite) onto the paper and used wood blocks to hold it in place as I filled in the dirt.  I didn't want a perfect and neat boarder or I would have used landscape bender board to delineate the walkway.  Instead, I wanted it to look more organic which was actually harder to make.

Adding paper and dirt over sod. Had been worried about
the dirt sliding down the paper on the slope, but it worked.

After I had a layer of paper and dirt down over the whole yard, I then carted more dirt to make it deeper and fill in the thin spaces until I had used up all the top soil (and my energy).

To seed the meadow, I started by making my "canvas" mix- putting 1/2# of Red Fescue into a bowl.  I really only needed about 8oz, but it was actually cheaper to by 1/2# because seed is a lot cheaper in bulk.  I then added the perennials that we wanted to be evenly distributed- a packet of White Yarrow, two of Purple Owl Clover (actually an annual), two of Buttercups and Blue-Eyed grass (not a grass), and then four packets of Padre's Shooting Star (my favorite and one that I think it going to be hard to grow- so I loaded up).  I was sparing on the yarrow because I know it grows well and I can add it later.  It can take over visually and so I wanted to be conservative.  The others should mix into the fescue and peak up without taking center stage.

Side Note: People spend a LOT of time and money trying to look like they do manual labor... looking lean, muscular and tanned.  I tell ya... forget that!  New workout trend should be manual labor.  11 cubic yards of dirt is ONE HELL OF A WORKOUT!  Grab a wheelbarrow and a shovel and get cracking! 

I don't know if this is necessary, but I mixed in some micorhizzae starter powder into the mix since it cannot hurt!  I am a big believer in probiotics for our family- so figured I should give the meadow the plant version.  It also helped make a medium that made it easier to spread the seeds.

My big pile of dirt- Want to know how hard it is to raise twin toddlers?
Grammy and Grampy watched the kids for a week while I dug and
shoveled. I was not all THAT much more tired than my typical week!

I broadcast the seeds by hand, just tossing them as evenly as I could.

The next step was the "swaths" of annuals and the taller grass- the Purple Needlegrass.  I took some flour to mark out where we wanted the swaths of each of the annuals and the Needlegrass and then I sprinkled seeds out.  For the swaths- we had Tidy tips, Miniature lupine, Poppies, and the Needlegrass.
Next- I walked over every square inch doing the chacha to pack down the soil a little and tap down the seeds.  I watered for no more than five minutes to give a quick little spritz and then lucked out with the first rains of the year coming RIGHT after I planted!

Now for the waiting game... waiting for germination.

Because I am a nerd and wanted our neighbors to know what we are doing- we put up a sign:  Cas printed it out and I laminated it for $3 at Kinkos.  We have had a LOT of people check it out and they are starting to ask questions.  Information Kiosk to come later... (I am actually not kidding.)

 

So far- it is about two weeks post seeding and we already have lots of germination.  Of the things that I can identify... we have Red Fescue, CA Poppies, Tidy Tips (the first to come up), Five Spots and a few that I can't ID yet.  I also planted some Shooting Stars in egg crates to transplant later and they have just begun to germinate- so hopefully they are germinating on the meadow too!  I get out on my hands and knees and look every day.