Kill Some Lawn?

This blog title may sound weird but for people who want to get rid of a patch of grass to plant a garden or put in a fountain, or some other landscaping feature, killing the lawn is a good solution. In addition, many people are tired of coddling and feeding their lawn only to have to chop it twice as fast because the more you feed it the quicker it grows.

However, using a chemical killer not only kills the lawn but anything that grows or even moves. It can be harmful to children and deadly to pets. Not only that it kills the microorganisms in the soil and, if you were to plant a garden afterward, this would not bode well for the new plants.

You can “cook” the lawn by putting on a layer of plastic vapor seal. The grass can’t breathe and the plastic holds in the heat. It turns brown and dies. Then you can rototill the dead lawn and add compost, The dead turf also becomes nutrients.

Smothering the grass works very well and is easier to do. Put down 2-3 layers of cardboard or 20-25 sheets of overlapping newspaper. Wet the layers well and then cover with 6-8 inches of manure and bulk from the compost pile. The lawn will be smothered and die, the paper or cardboard will decompose and you have a great start to a rich soil base for a garden or shrubs. There’s no extra work because the dead lawn will be more compost.

There are many reasons to have a lawn but more homeowners are deciding that there are many other things they would rather do than cut lawn.

Organic Lawn Care

One of the buzz phrases for promoting organic treatment of the yard was the line from an advertisement that said, “Is your lawn on drugs?” In other words, the long years of fertilizers have made your grass addicted to the chemicals which are supposed to help the yield and increase beauty.

Your Lawn on Drugs

It is true that lush, green, uniformly-bladed lawn is accomplished with various chemicals, many brands of which we know as well as the brand of laundry detergent we use. However, what has happened to your lawn over time is the slow leaching of nutrients from the oil. In other words, it would be like living off fast food restaurants – it is very possible to live off the food but your long-term health and immune system can be damaged by the constant diet of fat the effects of frying.

Lawn can be affected in much the same way. Fertilizers and pesticides destroy good organisms that give off nutrients that nourishes the grass, weakening its growth or increasing harmful thatch. When lawn is over-thatched, insects begin to multiply and disease sets in.

Organic Solutions

Let’s face the facts: your lawn may never be the verdant-green, uniform-blade turf that is found in the pictures on bags of fertilizer. But this is artificial. Clover and other plant-life do not hurt the lawn but rather work in symbiosis with the grass. Composted sheep manure can be raked into the lawn in the spring after aeration and this works as a great feed.

As for pest control, try corn gluten. It can control crabgrass, creeping bentgrass, smart weed, dandelions, redroot bigweed, purslane, lambs quarter, foxtail and barnyard grass. Grubs can be destroyed using simple nematodes, micro-organisms in the soil. Once released, the nematodes enter the insect’s body where they secret a toxin. the grub dies within 48 hours.

And if you have a smaller lawn try a push mower. There will be no more lawn mower to repair or electric cord to avoid running over.

For more information on how to have a chemical-free lawn and garden contact Renovation Experts.