As the garden
grows, so grows the gardener."
- Unknown
It all
began with a tree. A maple to be specific. A maple from a seed my husband picked
up on a walk one day and planted in a pot when he got home. After about 10
years of growth, we liberated the small tree from its pot and planted it in the
grass parking strip in front of our house.
Initially
I was only going to have a small circular patch cleared of grass around the
trunk. Mowing and edging grass too near a tree’s trunk can cause detrimental
damage to the bark layer and shorten the life of the tree so it’s always good
to have a safe zone of ground cleared of grass all the way around a tree’s
trunk. To create the safe zone, I did the cover-to-smother* method since I
refuse to dig out turf and I didn’t want to cause damage to the tree’s surface
roots by trying to remove the existing turf.
So, in
2010 I laid cardboard over the grass around the tree trunk, covered it with a
thin layer of mulch and let nature (moisture, worms and soil life) do its thing,
decomposing the turf, cardboard and mulch into nice aerated soil.
Sometime
later in 2011(below), I decided to enlarge the area around the tree and fill it
with perennials thereby reducing the amount of grass overall and so a new
garden began to take shape. The bricks you see were holding down some wire
panels from an old compost bin, intended to keep neighborhood animals from
digging into the mulch and exposing the cardboard.
Small
in its infancy, as gardens often do, it expanded over the years to come. By 2013
(below) my plants needed more room. So, I gathered more cardboard and widened
the edges,
…and
covered the cardboard with more mulch.
In the
next photo you can see those same bricks used from the first photo to hold down
the edge of the cardboard and give a neater looking delineation between the
mulch and grass.
Then
that same winter, I decide we need a walkway from the side walk across to the
street. Yep, I lay more cardboard and topped it with 18-inch square pavers and
side dressed the balance with more mulch and left it alone for the winter. It
really couldn’t be easier. I didn’t try to level the pavers at this point. The
next summer, once it was all decomposed underneath them, I did any leveling
adjustments as needed, which were few.
In 2014
I needed more room again. As the plants grow or I add more plants, I just expand
the edges to accommodate. It may be slow, but I think this is the easiest way
to carve away grass footage and gain garden space and beauty. It does take some
months for it to become a plant-able soil, so think in advance of buying the
plants or making divisions of your own holdings. Do the smothering 6 months or more before you want to plant. Your microclimate and weather conditions will
determine how fast the decomposition takes to become plant-able.
This
time I used more bricks to hold down an edge. It looked better and once it was
all decomposed, I removed them.
Now
it’s Autumn of 2019 and I decide to get rid of this last remaining strip of
grass between the garden and the sidewalk seen below. It is a nuisance to trim
and the plants need more room. I could of course cut back the plants but I’d
rather have less grass.
When
working against a concrete edge like this sidewalk, it is important to get the
cardboard tucked down an inch or so between the concrete and soil. Use a flat
blade from a spade or edger to pry the turf away from the concrete edge to make
it easier to tuck the cardboard in.
The
goal is to completely cover the grass. If it has any light peeking through any
edge it will find it and keep growing.
It is
also important to overlap each piece by a few inches for the same reason. Every
bit of grass must be covered so no light can get through.
I
marked the locations of our underground sprinkler heads with rocks, so in the summer
when it’s time to start watering again I can easily find them and carefully dig
to expose them. By then the grass and cardboard should be completely or mostly decomposed
and easy to poke around in.
In
some of the earlier photos above you will notice the cardboard is dry. I soaked
it after laying it, but before covering it with mulch. Now I prefer to soak it
before laying. I soak it in a big plastic tub, but if you can’t, then you can
let a sprinkler spray it for a while to wet it. I think wet card board is
easier to lay and conform to the ground undulations. Wind doesn’t tend to shift
wet cardboard around either before you can get a heavy mulch on top of it. But
be careful not to get it too wet. Sopping wet cardboard tears easily and can be
harder to get it from the tub to where you want it.
That
is a large size concrete mixing tub. It held all the cardboard I needed to do
this strip. I let it soak for about an hour while I gathered the tools I needed
for the project. A wheelbarrow would be a great choice too.
I like
to put mulch over wet cardboard rather than dry. I don’t want the dry cardboard
to pull moisture from the mulch. The key here is everything needs to stay
completely covered and moist, so your rainy season is good to take advantage of
when timing your project.
The
mulch you use can be bag-bought or your own home-made compost. I have used
both, whichever I have on hand. It just needs a fairly thick layer on the
cardboard so it all stays wet. You could also use wood chip. Mulch, compost,
wood chip…it doesn’t really matter. Just use whatever you want the end result
to be.
That
thin edge of cardboard will remain showing for the winter and possibly into
late winter/spring, until it falls apart. It may not look completed or
beautiful for those months but it’s a tradeoff I am willing to take rather than
dig turf. I could try to cover it with mulch but it will just roll off onto the
sidewalk and I don’t want to have to keep sweeping it, and if I still had all
those bricks, I would use them to make a nicer looking edge until it is all
decomposed.
When
my tree leaves begin to fall, I will cover it with them too, adding to the
layers, keeping it all moist underneath.
This is my version of working smarter not harder.
So if you’ve got grass you want to replace with a garden,
consider rummaging around in cardboard recycling bins or saving your home
delivery boxes. A new garden is only limited by the imagination.
*Cover-to-smother…a super
important side note:
When creating a garden close to
existing trees, it is critical to use compost or mulch NOT dirt or bagged soil.
Dirt and soil will build up the ground level and suffocate the surface roots. Surface
roots breath and absorb moisture from the ground surface. When they get buried
deeply, they try to regain surface. They can circle the tree trunk and as the
trunk continues to grow in circumference, it will be strangled by the root that
is circling it. That is called girdling. Girdling will kill any tree. As the
trunk is girdled the bark gets compressed closer and tighter to the heartwood.
The cells between the heartwood and bark are how nutrients and water get
transported up to the canopy and leaves. Once the bark is compressed so tightly
to the heartwood, nutrients and sap cannot flow. A thin layer of cardboard, compost
or mulch will decompose, keeping the soil level that the tree is used to
constant. Additionally, never pile more than an inch of compost/mulch over the
top of the cardboard. I see folks all around my local neighborhoods piling up
bark mulch or wood chip or compost or soil in huge deep piles way high up
against the trunks of their trees. See the two examples following below. This
will eventually kill the tree.
Please never do this (see above) to any
tree. Ever. When planting a potted tree, always plant it at the soil level it is in
the pot. Dig your planting hole 3 times the width of the pot but no deeper than
the soil level in the pot. When adding mulch never pile up more than an inch
deep close to the trunk or within the drip zone. A drip zone is the circumference
below the tree’s canopy marked by rain dripping off the edges of the branches,
straight down.
Tree trunks have a natural
flair at the base. Tree flair must be maintained for a healthy tree (above).
Some trees exhibit more flair than others.
I know this is a longer post than is my usual and I am
grateful you read it to the end. A few of my previous posts in this blog touch
on this method of grass removal, but I have been photo-documenting the making
of this garden over the years to make a more complete account. I hope this is
understandable and encouraging for you to create more garden space easily. No
grub hoe needed.
Any questions? Please comment below.
Thanks for reading. Cheers!
In
Bloom in my Garden Today: Alyssum, Aster, Coreopsis ‘moonbeam’, Crocus, Cuphea
vermillionaire, Cyclamen hederifolium, Daisy, Eupatorium rugosum
‘Chocolate’ (joe pye weed), Fuchsia,
Geum, Heuchera, Kirengeshoma palmata, Kniphofia ‘Echo Mango’, Lavender,
Nepeta ‘six hills giant’ (catmint), Phygelius, Salvia garanitica
‘black and blue’,
Solanum crispum
Author’s
photos
