It's good to see people converting lawns to something like a native demonstration garden. How did you go about removing the lawn (grass)?

Its wonderful to see your gardens and how different they are from North East in the same season.
Lovely job.

Thank you Ladies, we all know what a labor of love gardening is.

SongofJoy, we converted the lawn by layering newspapers and lots of mulch on top of that, then waited about 6 months and planted by making holes through the paper and mulch. I will give more details later, I am off to help at one of the local parks today.

Ge1836, the plants were in bloom until two days ago when we went down to 28 degrees, some are still green, but many have bit the dust, but they are perennials, so they will be back. Time to clean up and prepare for spring now.

Josephine.

Josephine, what wonderful gardens you have. What is that absolutely gorgeous tree in your front yard?

I am looking forward to reading about your method of converting lawn to flower beds.

So great to see pics of your yard again, Josephine! Sharon and Josephine, good idea to do this article! I love my native plants also! We also got hit with enough cold to knock a lot of plants into the winter doldrums. And killed some annuals.

Everything except my Geum 'Cookie' has been knocked back by heavy frosts and temps from low 20's to the 30's in the last 2 weeks.
Cookie still has beautiful orange blooms. What a plant.

For me, it's my Gaillardia 'Moxie'. We've had many hard frosts and numerous nights below freezing and it's still blooming.

Josephine, I really enjoyed the tour! I also love natives & wildflowers, I couldn't chose a favorite either.

I think it's wonderful what you have done! and beautiful!

I also love your tree in front!

I'm always excited to see grass gone & flowers abundant in replacing it! And it's SOOOO much easier to care for. And it now cares for others; that being wildlife. Win, win, win situation. Josephine, it looks gorgeous! Thank you for the tour.

Looks terrific! I know how much you love natives and this is an inspiration. What did you use for mulch and what for your paths?

Lynn, the gorgeous tree in the front yard is an Arizona Ash ; http://wildflower.org/plants/r...
I planted it in 1969, when our yard was completely bare, just soil, when we moved in, so I had to start from scratch.

I wish I had known then what I know now, but the tree was a wonderful choice, the leaves turn a beautiful golden color and it basically covers the entire front yard and gives us light shade which allows plants to grow under it.

We had it trimmed last winter to raise the canopy and allow more light for the flowers, so the structure shows a lot more now. It makes it very pleasant to sit there and enjoy the flower beds.
Josephine.

Dear Linda, many of the plants I have I got from you, so I can say that you have been a great contributer to my collection of Texas native plants for which I am very grateful.

You have access in your area to many plants that we don't find around here and are generous enough to share with your friends. I have also received plants from many other Dave's members, everyone is so generous and caring, what a wonderful community we have!!! Thank you everyone!!!

I feel that the two of us are on the same mission, to spread the knowledge, appreciation and cultivation of our beautiful native plants.

Josephine.

O.K. Anna and others who want to know how we got rid of the grass.
We had a mixture of Bermuda and St. Augustine. We measured the yard and drew the bed outlines on paper according to our situation and traffic patterns.

Then we asked out friends and neighbors to save newspapers for us, which they did, and we ended up with more than enough, bless them.
For the mulch we used shredded tree mulch provided by the local landscape companies for free. We got two truckloads which sat on our driveway and that wasn't fun, but oh well, you do what you have to


We marked the beds with black flat plastic edging and put an edging around the curb to hold the mulch, and then started laying newspaper 8 to 10 layers thick, wetting it first and being very careful to overlap every piece to make sure no light gets through. Also making sure the edge by the curb was very well tucked in.

Starting mulching along the curb.

Farther along the corner.

After all was mulched including the paths we waited and when the time was right we started planting by making a hole through the mulch and paper. We didn't till or pull the grass, just mowed it close before starting.
I guess it took me a few months to get it done little by little. Then we laid the rocks around the edges of the beds.

The edge bed with the rocks and plants coming in.


View of another bed.


Plants more advanced

We have not had trouble with the grass coming back or peeking through. We started in the fall of 2009 so it has been a journey but a very good and satisfying one.
That is my story and I'm sticking to it, my friends.
Josephine.

What a great little tutorial all in one post, Josephine, thank you!!
I can't even imagine all the hours you spent creating that gorgeous area.
It's beautiful.

Thanks for the info. I have LOTS of Bermuda grass.

You are welcome Sharon and Tee, I did spend many hours, but it was worth it.

Anyone who triumphs over Bermuda grass is my hero.

Thank you Josephine. I will be converting more of my lawn come spring time.

Josephine, you're an inspiration! I'm finishing my lawn-killing project in my garden this very weekend, except that I'm using cardboard and not newspaper. No one I know gets their newspaper delivered anymore!

I also have Bermuda grass, as well as very invasive weeds. I think the ones I have are crab grass, wild ginger, wild garlic, spotted spurge, and henbit and/or creeping charlie. A few months ago, I did sheet mulching in one part of my garden as a test and was surprised at all the worms it attracted. I really hope all the grass, weeds, and weed seeds are dead by April!

I'm thinking about growing some crossvine to cover an ugly chain link fence. How long do you think it would be before it got as dense as yours? How fat apart did you have to plant your crossvine?

I planted my Crossvine one every 10 feet, and it took about 4 years to cover.
Yes worms love newspaper and cardboard, good luck with your project, I hope it does great!!!