A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2005 Making planting beds...how do I get rid of the lawn?

I need to get rid of parts of my Bermudagrass lawn to make room for mixed beds of perennials and annuals. Is there an easy way to remove the grass? I've been carving it out with a shovel and filling up the trash can with the top 3" or 4" of grass and top soil and I'm not sure this is the greatest idea ever.

It sure isn't the easiest.

Thanks!

You are throwing out topsoil and organic matter with the lawn Nick. Not a great plan.
There are a few things you could do. The easiest being to spray the area with glyphosate and waiting a month or so for the grass to die then just digging over the area, do the soil improvements you need to and plant away.
Alternatively, and my preference, mow the lawn very short, sprinkle it with pelletised chicken manure and bury the lot (after a good watering) with 10 sheets thick of newspaper (or cardboard).Don't leave any gaps. Then mulch the lot. Heavily. Water again well. The grass will die in a few weeks because of lack of light. It will add organic matter to the soil and critters will break down the paper and do your digging for you. I've made all my gardens this way, a few needed further additions of organic soil and compost as well as some lime but the effort was minimal generally.
This is a basic idea of a widely used concept and there is heaps of info available on "no dig" gardens. Once you've got the concept understood, you can adapt it to your situation.
Oh BTW. Don't use carpet to kill the grass.

I dug my 40 ft bed by hand.I recomend a square shovel for that shapeing bit.I placed my grass and stuff in holes& barespots in yard& keept those watered.

When I read you "trashed up" your removals. My compost pile screamed.

when digging...and back starts to hurt...do something else in yard...then go back.

Thanks!

njoynit-Yeah, I'm not thrilled about throwing the grass out. But I was concerned about putting turfgrass and topsoil with years' worth of weed-n-feed and who-knows-what-else into the compost. Maybe there isn't anything to worry about there...


Longy-I think I'm gonna do your preferred idea, except I'll till before putting down the newspaper because the soil here is very heavy clay with just a hint of construction debris.


Thanks again.

Hi Nick,

I used to live in Ok. I really hated that clay soil.Adding gypsum helped a lot.

I agree with you.I wouldn't add all those chems to my compost pile.

hay you might try this.take a can of spray paint and paint the shape of the flower bed. then spray round up inside the shape.give it abought a week to kill the grass. then just till up the area.wait a week or two then spray any weeds that come back up from seed add leaves and compost till again then landscape your edgeing of the bed. then your ready to plant. this works quiet well.good luck on your new flower bed.your friend in gardening.mike57

put a little sing up that says free grass squares. I've moved twice into homes with a bare lawn and would have loved to have gotten good grass give to me.

Actually the first one I did, a guy tearing a house down cut the grass in blocks and told me I could have it. They were turning the lot back into a field, just wish I'd got there sooner before he cut and removed the bushes.

Thanks for the help!

I ended up using the sod I dug up to level out low parts of my front yard. I've got the edging in right now and I want to till a couple more times to get up more construction debris and concrete before I put the landscape fabric and mulch down.

Soon...the fun part: Picking the plants!

And I'll get around to putting up the pics...eventually...