I would recommend laying down cardboard first. Make sure the pieces of cardboard overlaps by at least an inch or two. Then cover the cardboard with compost and soil. Plant new plants on top of the cardboard.

The grass underneath the cardboard will die and the roots of the new plants will go through the cardboard as it decomposes.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Use Roundup or spray the lawn with Diesel. or Gasoline...

This does seem like the wrong approach. If you put down plastic, you will make a large impervious area that creates runoff. Better to plant native plants that attract wildlife like birds and butterflies. You can also plant berries and fruit trees and get some food yourself!

Solutions vary by climate and I live near Seattle. We tried several methods:

1) Clear plastic - total failure as it just created a hot house super patch.

2) Dig it out by shovel. Worked, but what a back breaker. If you have any amount to do and want to dig it out use power equipment.

3) Roto-till - In made it seem to go away quickly, but kept coming back because the grass was tilled under alive and ready to grow back. We were fighting "crab grass" for as ling as we lived there in these areas.

4) Newspaper & bark dust. We spread a thickish layer of newspaper and covered with a 4 to 6" mulch of bark dust (the most common mulch in the Northwest). It worked great. It killed the grass, and made for ready to plant beds. cardboard might work as well.

Best of luck.

I would highly recommend denverwater.org. They have a section on xeriscaping (under conservation), which should provide you with a number of tips on grass replacement. Soil stored beneath non breathable plastic can actually be very bad as it will store water.

You are probably correct about the grass growing back after tilling. The best way to make sure it won't grow back is by renting a sod cutter, or even better, digging out the grass by hand, and tilling after either. Chemicals (aside from being chemicals) will kill the grass, but it will still be tough to dig out.

At all cost, try to avoid plastic. When we moved into our house about 10 years ago, the landscape was mulched in stone covered plastic. After 10 years of removing it, much of it still exists, and plants don't like it. Just remember that fabric under rocks work really well until decaying leaves break down.

It sounds like you are on the right track to a great looking landscape. Enjoy the spring!

I guess if the grass grows back itself, it's o'natural, so I don't think it would be wasting any water if you're not using the sprinkler.

Unless you're in a highly drought prone area, I suppose it wouldn't be too bad to have grass--but I'd suggest adding trees. Also, there are certain types grass that don't need a lot of water, so you could use those.

Getting rid of "grass" may not be what you want. Planting grass sutible to your environment could be the best solution. I depends on how much rain you get. Grass MIGHT be the best solution.

We use regular non-hybrid bermuda here, it does fine on less than 20 inches of rain per year, and if we have a drought it just goes dormant to return with the next rain. Even when dormant it provides cover for the soil. We don't fertilize, and we don't water except the trees during drought, and we have a nice yard. It isn't "green colored" all the time, but it is green.

Don't rule out grass entirely, but find out what kind will grow naturally in your climate first. If you can find a grass that will survive in your climate without additional watering, it may be the best choice for you.

One thing to consider, is how much food will your plants produce for the wildlife? Should you plant things that nothing will eat, like most do, or should you plant something to produce food for the other enhabitants of Earth?

Your choice.

I do agree with grass being just an ornamental commodity. Scott Adams made a virtual house for his cartoon (Dilbert) with synthetic grass, the one used for sports arenas. No watering, no bugs, and it looks good the entire year.

This is awful. Let's tear up something GREEN that is reducing CO2 and replace it with PLASTIC?

Sure, lawns generally aren't the most natural of things but unless you are able to let your yard go totally wild, then just leaving well enough alone seems like the best option to me. Just don't water it or use chemical fertilizers. Mow sparingly if you have to.

It's hard to stop lawn growing back, especially couch grass and kikuyu. Is the plastic permanent? It can be a pain when you're digging things up. I usually turn up to garden at sites that have a layer of shredded plastic under a layer of dirt, that's useless and hard to get rid of.

Have you looked into permaculture? This would be more suited to a vegetable garden, perhaps, than an ornamental garden. Part of the thinking in permaculture is that weeds will grow well in poor soils. If you improve your soil, the other plants will out-compete the weeds. You can improve your soil through adding organic matter. I'd layer newspaper, cardboard, lucerne and peastraw and compost, all biodegradable. Google "esther dean" or "no dig gardens" for some inspiration in how to convert lawns.

If it were me I'd gradually decrease the size of the lawn. Diverting grey water is an option to keep it looking decent while you get other things going. The best use of space and water in urban/suburban environments is growing food in my opinion!

I'm not sure about that waste of water thingy though. It might be a waste of energy but I never have to water my lawn. I live in Belgium so it could be some different story for Americans BUT ... I see some of my neighbours looking at their brown lawns in the summer too, and I see some of them (the rest don't mind or bother) reaching for the waterhose. So I think that my mulchmower is the key to my 'succes'. Mulchmowing not only feeds your lawn, or limits the grass heap (that of course you all compost - most of them drive it of to some containerparks or give it with the green waste that is collected separately) but it also keeps the moisture in the soil (keeps it from evaporating AND as grass contains a lot of water the clippins give some of that water back to the soil as well). I hear a lot of prejudgice about mulchmowing (kids and animals bring clippings in the house,...) but i never would want a bag only machine again; my machine saves me time (and thus money and energy) and water....

it should work great. try using succulents to try to absorb some of the solar glare that will arise, and use many different size rocks and stones to divert the heat from the sun. That's actually what lawns are for - to keep the solar gain from heating your house to unbearable levels... so you have to keep that in mind in your design if you are going to replace it.

once you till over the soil and add landscaping cloth (not plastic), the grass will not grow back - it just isn't that kind of plant. Although as seeds on the wind and such go, you probably over the years will get a few little weeds and such finding nested pockets of dirt on the landscaping cloth to cling to and spring to life, so its something you have to watch closely.

this isn't really an environmental issue, as grass is rarely invasive and serves a necessary purpose - to guard your house from the glare of the surrounding cement!

I'd look at plants native to your area, and as said above, grasses that grow well in your area. I have kids, and a lawn is nice for them to play on. But they don't need a huge one, and other kinds of plants make for interesting exploration. Even in dry areas you can find some really nice looking ones.

If you use 2-3" inches of stone, you would be surprised how few weeds make it through, and how little time it takes to pull them and keep it weed free.

I used the burlap type weed block, and ran out so had lots of gaps on my patio and planters, and it turned out to be no big deal. I wish I hadn't wasted the time putting it down.

I water by hand once or twice a week, and only pull a few weeds once a couple of weeks when watering.

go to www.stepables.com to find a lawn substitution. Alot of the plants don't grow too much and so you won't have to mow them too. they also flower so you can have a great looking yard in the summer.
hey, maybe somebody should make an entry for this!

Using a sod lifter eliminates the grow back. We extended out a useless flower bed this spring eliminating about 150 square feet of lawn in favor of some shrubs that should survive without watering -- next year we'll be putting in the rain barrel for what watering we will need to do.

But none of the grass has come back.

I did re-use the sod in some places that were deficient in cover due to some really stupid things the prior homeowner did. And all of that sod is growing nicely. Over the course of the next few years we'll be taking out more and more of the lawn, though and some of that sod will eventually make it to the compost bin, which is where the unusuable remnants went.

The sod lifter, btw, was NOT a power tool. And the work was not "back-breaking" as some indicated. As long as you take manageable bites, you should be able to do this yourself and create virtually no waste.

How about just not watering or fertizilng your lawn? Keep it short and forget about it.