I’ve mentioned before that the “grass” in our yard is just a mess of weeds. I don’t know if anything in the lawn could be considered grass. In fact, according to the Midwestern Turfgrass Weed ID site at the University of Illinois , I’ve determined, at the very minimum, that we have the following:
- Broadleaf plantain
- Common purslane
- Common chickweed
- Curled dock
- Dandelion
- Ground ivy, aka Creeping Charlie
- Henbit
- Violets
- Wild Garlic
- White Clover
And those are just the non-grass weeds! The various weedy grasses we have are:
- Crabgrass
- Creeping bentgrass
- Yellow foxtail
- Quackgrass
Holy smokes! (I’d link to the pages, but the site still uses frames, so you’ll have to go through it on your own.)
In addition to that mess, because there were various trees on the property in the past and the yard was basically neglected, the ground is extremely uneven. One could easily twist an ankle just walking on the lawn.
We began to even it out a little by taking the soil we dug up for the patio and raking it over the lawn to fill in low spots.
I’m not sure how we’ll remedy the areas that we want to remain lawn. We will very likely have to start from scratch, which won’t necessarily be a big deal, because we won’t have much of it.
For the other parts of the lawn, we’re starting to convert it to prairie garden. There are several different ways to get rid of lawn: using herbicide, cutting/tilling and smothering. They all have their pros and cons. And they all sound so evil.
I’ll go over the methods in the next post.
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Wow, good luck with your lawn! I’ve got to keep reading to see what works because we more weeds than lawn too. The previous owner didn’t maintain the lawn so we have 11 years worth of weeds throughout our property.
Oh, and I wanted to tell you about our new house blog. I’m so excited to finally have it up and running! (If you don’t remember me my husband was the sci-fi guy I was telling you about earlier.) : )
I’ve been preparing to “lasagna” garden for my next flower/veggie gardens… I’m all about lazy, and this sounds perfect. Cut the weeds short. Lay 5 layers of newspaper. Put 2 to 4 inches of manure or compost down. 5 more layers of newspaper. Top with straw or fine wood chips. Let sit for 4 to 6 months OR if you want to plant right away, dig small holes, fill with a handful of dirt, and plant right in them.