In article , dd
wrote:

Thanks for all the advice! We will do Roundup followed by plastic. The
BIG ROCKS idea is great too--and there's no shortage of them.

DON'T use Round-up. Glyphosate is detectible in soil a year after use
despite company claims to the contrary, & it's surficant is a very
long-lasting danger to watersheds & amphibian life. Herbicides are just
generally a bad idea. It also doesn't work perfectly well on lawns unless
SLATHERED with the poison on hot days -- if you use the correct amount
within allegedly safe (but not actually safe) limits, you'll end up with
patches of black dead grass here & there, sickly live grass in some
places, dense roots no easier to dig out than if you hadn't made the grass
look unpleasant first, weeds seeding themselves throughout very happily &
leaping to life unless excesses of herbicide are slathered on again every
time the wind blows, & what you end up with is a cancerous looking
******** of scabrous ugliness hard-packed & difficult to dig off the whole
surface or plow under, just a crappy mess leaving you more work to restore
to anything worthwhile -- just about as much work as had you not bothered
to turn it into a patchy-scabrous & toxified horror beforehand.

As is so often the case, a purely ORGANIC approach is not only healthier
for the yard (& the world), but even WORKS BETTER: Lay corregated
cardboard or many layers of newspaper covering the whole lawn area that
you want gone. Then place a sterile manure mulch an inch thick on top of
the paper, which makes the area look rather like fresh topsoil, plus the
blackness of the manure compost heats up the grass underneath, to the
point of rapid death. The combination of heat & lack of sun kills ALL the
grass & weeds, & worms turn the dead grass to healthful loam rather than
you turning it to scabrous black half-living filthy-looking patches. Worms
will also begin eating the cardboard & paper whenever it is wet, so that
by the time all the grass has been completely killed by heat & lack of
sun, the paper like the grass itself will be reduced to nothing but
healthful wholesome loam. (Only paper that wasn't sufficiently buried
under a layer of compost or never got moist will remain, there'll
otherwise be no sign of it). Worms just LOVE the dying matter under the
paper & the paper itself, so by the time this process is finished, the
worms & bacterial activity will have aerated & mixed the soil sufficiently
that it is all healthy loam, & loosened enough by worms to turn quite
easily for gardens. There'll be no matted half-dead roots to discard,
it'll be nice loamy soil.

I've used this method even for hard-packed roadside areas that were dense
with weeds & meadow grasses. These were completely weedless with a season
of such treatment. If I get impatient, the most that remains is some
dandylion carrots, easily discarded as I turn the self-loosened soil.
Large areas that would otherwise have taken weeks of agonizing
muscle-aches & sweat to dig up were very easily turned with just a couple
hours work. As you say you have no place to compost, you'd be throwing
away tons of topsoil, but this organic method composts in situ & wastes no
nutrients.

I have already this month turned a big roadside area into a new
sun-garden & it took me about three hours. My sweety went off on erands &
when she came back, there were in the morning there was nothing there was
suddenly a new garden with torch lilies, succulent ice plant, rockroses,
leafless fruit tree, rose-of-sharon, hybrid broom, & lambs-ears all placed
out in fresh-turned soil. It surprised even me it took no time at all --
some of it having waited some whiole in pots to be planted, some of it
transplanted from other gardens. It happened so swiftly it was almost
disappointing I couldn't fuss with it for a week, it just all went
together presto because I'd killed the grass & weeds by the method above &
ended up with soil already nearly ready for planting. I wacked it a few
places with a pick, shoveled it all upside down so that the topcoating
mulch & the worm-devoured grass was mixed a bit into the soil, & laid in
some plants. I'd covered the area late last year & it took autumn & winter
to work, but if it were done in warmer seasons it is much faster, & you
can even punch holes here & there & plant at least woody shrubs or trees
well before the overall area is actually ready for an extensive perennial
garden. I tried the herbicide method back when I was "95% organic" & would
still excuse myself for cheating if I thought it was the best way -- but
it soon becomes obviously never the best way & is not a labor-saving
shortcut at all. Herbicides were not merely not really necessary, but
still demanded much harder work to repair the resulting eyesoar, work
easily avoided by the more effective non-chemical method.

Next roadside location to be similarly treated is for rugosa roses & an
as-yet undecided tree. The roses are already waiting in pots for me to get
round to it, biggish ones gotten half-price during an off-season sale.

-paghat the ratgirl

In article , dd
wrote:

This spring, we are taking the plunge and getting rid of our front
lawn, or what's left of it. It covers about 200 square feet. It will be
a lot of work for me (older female) to dig out the sod. After I dig it
out, I will have to put it in the garbage. (We have a small urban lot
and there is absolutely no place to compost the sold or hide it.)

So, will using Round-up kill the grass in a satisfactory manner? Will
it leave soil in which I can plant new plants in a month or so after
the grass is dead? Will the Round-up hurt the dogwood tree that is
under the grass? Will it hurt the birds who visit my garden?

Normally, I am not a fan of Round-up, but it does seem like a good
alternative to digging out all that sod.

Thanks for any help.

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/