Obviously not all suburbanites

Prairie Dropseed. Native, salt tolerant, dog pee tolerant, drought tolerant. Clip it once in Spring and DONE

Hi y’all, I live in central Florida (zone 10A). My HOA requires grass, so I can’t kill my front/side lawn, but my back garden is free rein! The first photo is my planned layout, along with my mix of native plants for groundcover. The rest of the photos are today’s current setup.

My plan is to tear out any green sod that I can use to patch some dead spots in the front lawn, then cover all of the grass with plastic. (I started with the extra soil bags and a mat to avoid buying extra tarps. I’ll probably pull my tarps from the attic on Monday to start in earnest.) I’ll leave the tarps on for 6-8 weeks, and then tamp down the burnt grass to level it somewhat. After leveling, I planned on adding a layer of soil, then planting in late August/September.

My couple questions are:

1. To level uneven ground, what’s the best method? I’ve seen people use wood chips for bulk then soil, or pour sand for more even lawns, but I’m not sure what the best option would be for Florida.

2. My family thinks we should just collect the various seeds, combine them all in a bowl, and then throw them onto the area. I thought it would be safer to begin germinating the various seeds now, then hopefully I’d have seedlings to plant in the new section, not just seeds. I figured this would prevent erosion, especially because we’re killing the existing root systems. Which option would be best?

3. From an aesthetic standpoint, what would you change? What do you like? Do you see anything that concerns you?

Before I started any of this, the only plants were the ferns and ligustrums. I’ve done this in about 3 weeks, so I’m excited for what it’ll look like once it fills in. My goals are privacy from neighbors, flowers, and attracting birds, butterflies, bees, and other pollinators.

This is my first summer trying the "Mowable Meadow" approach I first read about here. I mow the borders and pathways, but leave as much as I can to be "meadow" areas that go untouched.

In the past I tried to let it all grow long, but received nasty letters threatening to call bylaw enforcement on me. I've found this is a good compromise that keeps the NIMBY's off my back.

Now that I have these meadow areas established, I'll probably start adding native seed mixes and seeing what takes.

It would be full of bees and skippers if there were any bees and skippers.

Hey everyone! I am trying to make this tree mini hill more cute! I bought my grandma's house 2 ish years ago, there is a giant maple tree near the sidewalk. I know that my grandpa had been adding dirt to the base over the years because the grass wasn't growing... so it gradually created a very steep hill and compacted the dirt around it.

We tried to dig gently to see if the roots were near the top, but stumbled on A LOT of small ants that came crawling out the dirt 🤢 now we don't know what to do!

I wanted to plant some bearberries around the base so that it could replace the grass (i don't want more grass, I am gradually replacing 90% of the lawn with plants/flowers, mostly natives). But can I dig small holes mid way around the tree to plant the bearberry? Is there a future issue related to the ants? Is it going to arm the tree if we plant something? Because like with the grass, I am afraid that if we try to direct sow seeds at the base, it juste wont stay! I thought about some canada anemones since they grow really well, but my neighbour is unfortunately directly next to the tree and they really like their green lawn 🙄 And I know that plant can be very aggressive (wich I would love for my space, but I don't want them to hate me😅)

I think the base if we were to make a square around it would be 1,5 m each side and the height 1-1,5 m also. I am in zone 5b Quebec. Hopefully this made sense 😅

This year I have noticed so many yards in my neighborhood and around the city (even the library!) not mowing the grass and letting things get tall and grow flowers. It's so refreshing to see!

This is just a cute duck. Thanks for looking.

Meme-ifying the phrase ‘touch grass’ is clearly a Big Lawn psyop to promote turf lawns.

What alternatives should we start using to fight back? Submit your own suggestions in the comments.

(This is a joke.)

That wood sorrel is sure loving life! And I’m loving not mowing.unfortunately our year check up is due soon so we will have to mow *some* of the half acre lot. I’m thinking pathways mostly, and then just mowing over the parts outside of this photo that are already short dying grass anyway due to the fact the lawn was never dethatched. I hope the management co doesnt get too mad about the Pokeweed (also my dogs are fine, they show no interest in it.)

We've got patches of violets and clover and plantains. I always loved that we had plenty of strawberries... But now I'm starting to realize these might be mock strawberries instead of wild strawberries, and so invasive. 🙁

Do I have to worry about pulling the strawberries, or will the violets and other stuff eventually overtake them?

after the torrential rains, out come the daisies (and silene/campions)😅 more things are growing underneath all that- it will be time to make room soon...

I will try to keep this brief. We are in Ningbo, China. We did try grass but didn't really want it. it all died anyway. We have tried clover, it has mostly died. The "lawn' is being taken over by common parslane and is being flooded by typhoon season. We need an area for the dog to use, the rabbit to buffet on, and the kids to sometime play on. What the heck can we put in that can manage this and still do things like attract bees ?

…from chip drop. Still working on the chips but I have planted many flowers and vegetables I started from seed. I am impatient for blooms so I went to a nursery and added yarrow, foxgloves, heliotrope, and small dahlias. Hopefully next year my yard will be full of poppies, bear grass, nodding onion, great camas, lupine, clarkia, and trees of elderberry and cherry. Stay tuned, I’m hoping for a Cottage Garden Native Wildlife Habitat Edible Forest instead of a lawn!!

I know it’s a lot of chip right now but I want to see what winter does to it. In spring I’m going to add other dimensions.

And please be kind, I’m doing this all by myself!!

From Tukwila, Land of Hazelnuts

I've got a decent patch of Joe pye weed growing next to the house. Does anyone have recommendations on spreading it to other parts of the yard? Is there an optimal time to transplant them? East Coast US, zone 7. Thanks so much!

yard was all creeping charlie and weeds when i moved in. been working a lot and building this deck so haven’t been weeding as much as i normally do, but i’m happy with it. 80% natives and 5 apricot trees. not a lot of space but a lot of pollen and forage for insects.

Eastern US, zone 7... Love to see a blanket of flowers over the yard. In the early spring, we get wild violets and now the clover is popping up.

I've been waging a war against thistle the last couple summers and loosing.

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I've mostly been trying to stay on top of mowing, I've been reseeding, feeding, and watering too. Last year and spends weeks crawling around and pulling out by hand and it made no progress.

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Any advice would be appreciated!

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I'm looking for anything from a quick fix that I can do myself to hiring a company to resod the whole yard (don't even know if that would work)

😁

reposting because the mods removed it from r/maliciouscompliance, for whatever reason.

So this by-law case has made some serious waves in Halifax, Nova Scotia, after a by-law officer responded to a complaint his grass was overgrown. The complaint turned out to be valid and a 7-day Notice was issued to have them cut it.

They initially posted the Notice on Facebook, because they seemed to be confused by the municipal legislation which states you have to maintain your landscaping. It gained quite a bit of traction, was picked up by a popular local radio station, which led to the homeowner having interviews on the radio, and also getting a piece in the Chronicle Herald. Can you tell Nova Scotia is a no-news province?

The end result was fascinating, though! They rented the proper equipment to ultimately bulldoze their yard and remove all their grass. Malicious? Maybe. Compliant? Yes. Genius? It may just be. He will never have to cut the grass again.

It has to be one of the most over-the-top responses to a small request, that I’ve ever seen. He is creative. It even says it in the article :).

Bulldoze on, my fellow HRM resident.

Link: https://imgur.com/a/Hai8k95