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#31
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best way to get rid of lawn
Clear would get truly hot. I wanted to deprive light so I went with
black. Either way, it gets the job done. Jim Lewis wrote: = "J Kolenovsky" wrote in message ... Something else that works well is "solarizing" the grass by covering with black plastic that is well anchored down over it. The grass dies and decomposes due to worm action and you aven't lost any of the beneficial bacteria that has built up in the soil. = http://www.hal-pc.org/~garden/weststreet1.jpg http://www.hal-pc.org/~garden/cornereast.jpg http://www.hal-pc.org/~garden/eastgarden2.jpg http://www.hal-pc.org/~garden/negarden.jpg = JK = =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D = Actually, though, clear plastic gets hotter quicker (and at higher temp). I know, it is counterintuitive, but true. The sun goes through but heat doesn't go back out, so sun keeps building -- al la greenhouse. And, SOME of the bactees may die; their susceptibility to temperature varies. But no big deal. They come back. = Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Nature encourages no looseness, pardons no errors. Ralph Waldo Emerson -- = Celestial Habitats by J. Kolenovsky 2003 Honorable Mention Award, Keep Houston Beautiful =F4=BF=F4 - http://www.celestialhabitats.com - business =F4=BF=F4 - http://www.hal-pc.org/~garden/personal.html - personal |
#32
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best way to get rid of lawn
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. 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. |
#33
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best way to get rid of lawn
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/ |
#34
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best way to get rid of lawn
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. 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. |
#35
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best way to get rid of lawn
I can barely walk sometimes and the way I get rid of it is by digging it out. I
don't recommend you use chemical herbicides, such as Round Up because they are toxic to soil fauna and flora and when soil is not healthy, nothing else which grows in it will be healthy. Get yourself a sharp spade and cut the sold and dig it out. On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 12:23:46 GMT, dd opined: 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. |
#36
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best way to get rid of lawn
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/ |
#37
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best way to get rid of lawn
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. Rutgers University had a huge field that was basically in wild orchard grasses. They wanted to reseed it with a good field grass blend. They sprayed it with roundup. Then a couple days later, they sewed the new lawn seed. The new seed germinated and came it at about the same rate as the old lawn died. Most people didn't even realize there was a change since it happened so smoothly and with such a gradual transition. There was so little residual roundup in the soil that it had no effect on the new turf. -- Pardon my spam deterrent; send email to http://home.earthlink.net/~rhodyman |
#38
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best way to get rid of lawn
"Stephen M. Henning" wrote in message news dd wrote: Rutgers University had a huge field that was basically in wild orchard grasses. They wanted to reseed it with a good field grass blend. They sprayed it with roundup. Then a couple days later, they sewed the new lawn seed. What size needle and thread did they use? |
#39
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best way to get rid of lawn
Thanks to all who responded! You gave me some great ideas. Any
recommendations for good dwarf evergreens--that stay dwarf? Several years ago, I got something at Home Depot that was supposed to be a dwarf, but it turned into a monster and I had to dig it out. |
#40
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best way to get rid of lawn
I can barely walk sometimes and the way I get rid of it is by digging it out. I
don't recommend you use chemical herbicides, such as Round Up because they are toxic to soil fauna and flora and when soil is not healthy, nothing else which grows in it will be healthy. Get yourself a sharp spade and cut the sold and dig it out. On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 12:23:46 GMT, dd opined: 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. |
#41
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best way to get rid of lawn
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. Rutgers University had a huge field that was basically in wild orchard grasses. They wanted to reseed it with a good field grass blend. They sprayed it with roundup. Then a couple days later, they sewed the new lawn seed. The new seed germinated and came it at about the same rate as the old lawn died. Most people didn't even realize there was a change since it happened so smoothly and with such a gradual transition. There was so little residual roundup in the soil that it had no effect on the new turf. -- Pardon my spam deterrent; send email to http://home.earthlink.net/~rhodyman |
#42
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best way to get rid of lawn
"Stephen M. Henning" wrote in message news dd wrote: Rutgers University had a huge field that was basically in wild orchard grasses. They wanted to reseed it with a good field grass blend. They sprayed it with roundup. Then a couple days later, they sewed the new lawn seed. What size needle and thread did they use? |
#43
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best way to get rid of lawn
Thanks to all who responded! You gave me some great ideas. Any
recommendations for good dwarf evergreens--that stay dwarf? Several years ago, I got something at Home Depot that was supposed to be a dwarf, but it turned into a monster and I had to dig it out. |
#44
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best way to get rid of lawn
where do you live, dd?
Dave "dd" wrote in message ... Thanks to all who responded! You gave me some great ideas. Any recommendations for good dwarf evergreens--that stay dwarf? Several years ago, I got something at Home Depot that was supposed to be a dwarf, but it turned into a monster and I had to dig it out. |
#45
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best way to get rid of lawn
Zone 6, in a Boston suburb. This winter has been so bad, though, it
seems like the Arctic... In article , David J Bockman wrote: where do you live, dd? Dave "dd" wrote in message ... Thanks to all who responded! You gave me some great ideas. Any recommendations for good dwarf evergreens--that stay dwarf? Several years ago, I got something at Home Depot that was supposed to be a dwarf, but it turned into a monster and I had to dig it out. |
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