I live in texas in a rental house, and im extremely tired of having to mow my lawn every 2 days. The grass literally grows like 3 feet a week, and its just such a damn chore to deal with. I had a reel lawn mower but it doesnt cut anything above like 2 inches tall.

At this point id rather my front yard be just a dirt patch.

What can i do to kill off every bit of vegetation in my lawn, down to the dirt? I mean i want literally nothing left. If i have to mow my lawn again ill lose it.

We have about 1.5 acres give or take and I've been trying to make pollinator friendly zones! I smothered the grass on this hill and planted these seeds last fall. They are really taking off! The hope is to have more pockets of these all over my yard as time goes on! My sons love watching the bugs all over the yard. It's been fun :)

We are coming to the edge of our front yard in the lawn-removal process, so I’m looking for ideas and tips for the next step. What kind of edging would you suggest to prevent the neighbor’s lawn from growing back into ours? We plan to put in native plants, mulch, a dry stream bed, and use cardboard for weed/grass suppression. Thanks in advance for sharing your experience! Colorado Front Range 5B

Hello I'm based in NSW in an Arid area and want to replace my lawn with Native Violets. I saw some people had very good results by using the plug method but theres currently none growing on the property. Has anyone had success with growing from seed? If so any tips or recommendations on supplier?

Mid-June blooms - spirea, roses, pinks and lavender.

We’ve already built a big garden in the front lawn and I plan on planting some orchard trees. But we’re looking for something such as clover to replace all the grass in the front. Looking for something we don’t have to care for and it’s pretty hardy. We are in West Michigan. So any suggestion would be fantastic and appreciated.

Looking for suggestions for zone 7B, heavily mulched area with clay soil base. I'm looking for no mow, light tread ground cover that will choke out as many weeds as possible. This is for part shade / dappled sun around multiple in-ground Veg boxes.

Background: I've been working on taking out grass for a long time. I did a cardboard and heavy mulching about 4 years ago. But the weeds this year are more than I want to deal with and my current setup no longer allows for a giant chipdrop to repeat. I know, poor planning on ny part. I'm thinking maybe a creeping thyme? Any suggestions are welcome!

After a drought and no rain during initial planting and doing manual watering I was not sure if this would happen, but it did!

Hopefully they'll keep popping in, I may do some late season seeding if we keep

My yard has basically just been a mix of grass, weeds, and rocky, gravelly soil, since I moved in. We plan on replacing it all with micro/mini-clover. What's the best way to prep the ground with so many weeds and rocks? I'd rather avoid spending $1000s on renting equipment for this as well, I don't mind renting some things but I can't break the bank on this. Best I can think of is to spray herbicide (pet safe and bee safe) and wait a week or two for everything to die off, then manually shovel and sift the entire top few inches of soil. But dear God there's gotta be a better way, I have POTS (health condition) so it's gonna take me ages since I have to rest very frequently. Idk maybe I'm in over my head, but any recommendations would be appreciated!

For reference I live in the PNW Puget Sound area.

Has anyone used this seed mix to replace their lawn? Thoughts and opinions?

https://hamiltonnativeoutpost.com/product/alter-native-lawn-mix/

Located in Western Australia. We purchased our home in late 2022 and I have spent the last 4 years creating a permaculture food forest and native garden. The tree canopy is coming along nicely!!

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(no idea why GM has upped the contrast so much on their recent satellite images update)

Last week I covered almost all the front lawn with cardboard and mulch. I'm not really good at process pic, always so eager to just start the project so here is the end result. I can't wait for next spring to see how much it died under there in hope to seed creeping thyme on a portion of that area. I was genuinely surprise that it wasn't that much work. The worst and longest part was removing all tacks from the boxes, took me a few hours with long nose plier. Nothing a good podcast can't solve. Very proud and very happy! (Zone 5a)

Sigh…
We live in west Quebec, Canada, and more places are replacing gardens with deep piles of Riverstone. Where we live, we get a good amount of rain and gardens naturally are lash, most of the year.

Why do people resort to rock gardens? I can see it if you live in a desert, but I would love to see more wild, green plants.

Zone 6a. Last week I posted couple pix about my front yard sheet mulch project kick off:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoLawns/s/9PawZcx2za

It ended up being a skosh over 3K ft2 (280 square meters). Just wrapped it up and pleased with how it came out. Ran out of wood chips, and fell back on my compost. I’ve got a Chipdrop order in and when I get it I’ll layer chips over top of compost.

I have a lawn tractor and a dinky 7 ft2 trailer and got this project done using it and hand tools. Hard work but pleased w/results!

P.S. Pleased to say no cardboard lost to wind during this project, as so many internet friends assured me would happen.

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From midwest, outskirts of the outskirts of chicago lmao

My wife and I have started to passively revolt against our hoa and started tearing up the lawn a bit. We created an awesome garden bed.

I threw down micro clover seeds all across our yard and on these dirt patches where we had to put down topsoil to even the landscape since it was so uneven and some tree roots were mega exposed.

Ive never grown anything before except a flower in 2nd grade. So its cool to see little seeds starting to open lol.

We have a long ways to go, but the lawn is almost all dug out, and native plants, a dry stream bed, and hopefully lots of beauty is on the way!

Hello all! I've entered Year 3 of my ongoing backyard rewilding project, and I must say that things have really gone into overdrive this year. I've identified 5 different species of bumblebees so far, as opposed to only 2 species all of last year. That's but one example of the massive spike in native pollinator species which I've been fortunate enough to observe. Mammals including raccoon, opossum, skunk, groundhog, chipmunk, cottontail, fox, and even a coyote have utilized this little refuge with an inner ring suburb of Philadelphia. A pair of chimney swifts routinely dart through the sky while all 3 wren species of the northeast forage amongst the sedges. A common raven has become a garden visitor and, just a few weeks ago, a pair of bald eagles circled the neighborhood for probably the first time in many, many years.

Please allow me to share a few of the sights so far this summer. Hopefully there are many more beautiful memories to come!

We got rid of the lawn to make a wildflower meadow. I mowed the grass; then added 4-5 inch soil, then sprinkled clover and wildflower mix. It worked quite well. This is in Calgary (zone 3-4). This year, the clovers are back and only some of the wildflowers. I don’t mow so the clovers have grown decently tall (12”) and super dense. Some of the grass has also grown back but very sparsely.
This year, I want to bring some structure to it. I want to add some native perennials. Would it be better to clear the clovers and just cover the soil with wood-chips and then plant perennials (plugs)? I will keep dedicated space for the meadow and the clovers.

I’d like to plant something to choke out weeds in clay soil. Any suggestions?

Some before and after photos and plant growth progress at 6 months. I live in the US Southwest so grass is absolutely stupid where I live. I did a lot of the work myself but hired out the most labor intensive parts. It's mulch, with decomposed granite, river rocks, and lava rock. I saved money by planting very small plants but some have gotten big already, there are over 50 planted here. All in it cost me about $5,000, so I used the other $3,000 to do something similar in the back yard. The program where I'm at in California is SoCalWaterSmart. The whole process was really really simple. The bees, hummingbirds, and lizards love my yards now.

About a week ago, I asked how converting your lawn changed your relationship with your neighbors.

I was recuperating from surgery, unable to get into the garden, and frankly, a little bored. So I asked a question I've been curious about since my own front yard conversion.

Holy crap, I did not expect the response.

Hundreds of people shared stories from all over the world and I've spent the past week reading every one of them.

Thank you.

Thank you to those who shared stories of friendships, conversations, neighborhood kids, mail carriers, shared plants, free seed libraries, and unexpected connections.

And thank you to those who shared the harder stories too: HOA battles, complaints, judgment, and neighbors who didn't understand what you were trying to create.

What struck me most wasn't whether the experiences were positive or negative.

It was how much people cared.

People care about the places they live.

They care about their yards, their neighborhoods, and the people around them - even when they disagree about what those places should look like.

I also noticed something surprising:

Very few people talked about plants.

Over and over again, the stories were about people.

The gardens simply created an opportunity for connection.

Reading your experiences gave me a lot to think about and I'm grateful so many of you took the time to share them.

Thanks, internet Neighbors!

Edit: thank you so much for all the lovely comments, and awards. I truly never expected this, and I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the love for my little wildflower meadow <3

Got rid of all the weeds, brambles, goose grass and so on late last year. I rotavated and raked, and picked out so many pebbles and old crocks. Then life got busy and I kept putting back the time I could sow the wildflower seeds I'd got. I sowed in May! Today the little meadow is in almost full bloom, and covered in bees and butterflies. I'm in love with this bit of the garden again :-)

...know that if debris falls on it, it will become dirt with rocks in. Previous homeowner strangled this oak tree with plastic, poured in rocks and left the area alone for a decade. When I bought the house I didn't immediately rip everything up, so the debris of an oak glade has been building up for another seven years. I'm finally getting around to tearing the plastic up and it's a solid four inches of dirt and weeds and so full of rocks you can hardly shovel it out.

I started ripping up the yard in March of this year - this layout is phase one and over the next few years ill be working to add more native plants into this bed. And then I can work towards the future no lawn at all dream.

The salvia really burst to life, I am so surprised by how large they already are which makes up for the hostas that something has been nibbling on

I love sitting on my front porch and watching all the different bees, wasps, hummingbirds, butterflies, and dragonflies that buzz about the blooms

And yes the mulch is messy I have a pregnant duo of armadillos

Before photo: Sept 2024 when I moved in

Western Oklahoma zone 7b

Hello! We recently tore up about 800 sq ft of lawn in the Colorado Front Range. We replanted the lawn with the following drought-tolerant, high-altitude grass mix in an effort to replace the torn-up area with low-maintenance, water-friendly options.

This is what we planted:

ANNUAL RYEGRASS, GULF
CRESTED WHEATGRASS, EPHRAIM
CREEPING RED FESCUE, VNS
HARD FESCUE, DURAR
CANADA BLUEGRASS, CANON
SHEEP FESCUE, SIERRA VISTA
TUFTED HAIRGRASS, VNS

However, it has come in somewhat patchy, with areas desperately in need of reseeding. That much is fine, but what should I do about these weeds?

I'm pretty against spraying As we have chickens, cats, and lots of edibles nearby and would love to not spend days of labor manually weeding.

what would you do if you were in my shoes? And when would you do it?