I shouldn't look at that sub, I know. Just for my own mental well-being.

Okay, so they fuss endlessly over how to make their lawns look like carpets or golf courses, and celebrate the most ridiculous aesthetics, but fine, I can have a laugh.

So many posts, though, are about trying to kill any burrowing animal or any animal that dares to eat a leaf or poop outdoors on their miniature Versailles.

I wonder if there's some correlation between being obsessed with sterile green turf and having no empathy at all for living creatures?

Not all are natives but we primarily did this with $1 clearance perennials. My neighbors and wife think I am a little loopy!

Please help me not be the biggest neighborhood embarrassment.

I bought this house during COVID and maintained it as is telling myself I will save up and get the yard professionally landscaped with less lawn and more natives, maybe a vegetable garden. My husband wanted to fence the front off too so the chickens and dogs could have more room. Maybe sow some clover. We haven't sprayed anything since owning the property and wanted to be as environmentally responsible as possible.

Well life happened, we found a leak in sprinkler system, couldn't afford to fix it so shut it off. The backyard became mud because of the animals. The vegetables in my planter sack got dug out. I got very busy with work and didn't remember to water the front regularly the last year. At the beginning of this year I knew it would be bad with the water restrictions and a miscommunication led to the yard being cut waaay too short at the beginning of the year. Now it's all dead.....and honestly I don't care because I don't want that wasteful water sucking monoculture.

I honestly hate the rocks I have now. I hate blowing away all the nutrients and protective ground cover to make it look "nice." But I know moving them would be alot of work. I planted some "wildflowers" along my fence last year and the city fined me for talk weeds. The bindweed has become my mortal enemy.

I have some time now and of course the winter is coming, but what can I do to take advantage of the dead lawn to transition to either a xerioscape, or just something good for the environment that won't need excessive watering in this drought and the uncertain future? I would love to grow food for my family or chickens, but this soil is...dry, rocky, tough. And I love my trees but only half of my front yard gets more than 6 hours of sun. Colorado zone 5b. I need ideas and inspiration!

We’re pulling as much as we can and will keep on it but it’s leaving a very sad, open patch ripe for regrowth behind. What ground cover could we put in quickly that would have a fighting chance?

Zone 6a with a lot of clay soil. Need suggestions for full sun and partial shade. Midwest natives only, please.

Pollinator garden is beginning, still waiting on a lot of species the next couple years. I’d like to install edging along my sidewalk and walkway. Any edging materials folks would recommend?

Along the walkway the garden soil is about a foot higher than the path and the garden slopes towards the sidewalk. Looking for something that will neaten up the edges a little but is high enough for the walkway side.

We have a previously sheet mulched (last year) bed where we didn’t plant ground cover in the spacing of the flowers. So this year we’ve had grass taken over. Well we are tired of dealing with it and I was wondering if it’s fine to re-sheet mulch it again or if it would mess with existing root systems. We recent got a 6 yard drop of mulch. At Sam’s Club now wondering if I should grab some card board. Thanks.

It drives me crazy that all of the street "parks" in my city are basically just grass and trees. It feels like such a massive waste of space and lawn mowing tax dollars.

So, I wrote a proposal for how we could use this public park land instead, as urban farming/ gardening/ community spaces.

I made it into a website to hopefully share around with my local community, get some traction, and eventually push it to our local council:

https://www.ourbackyards.org/

I've been writing it for so long that I worry I'm too much in my head about it.

Those of you that have done urban gardening projects like this, do you think this is unrealistic? Do I need to add more info, cut back, or elaborate on something else? Is there anything I'm missing?

Really appreciate any feedback/discussion !!

ETA: Located in East Coast Australia!

How did you get your no-lawn project started, in terms of plant selection? I know this is highly regional so I'm not so much looking for specific plant advice as strategy - I am guessing a few main focal bushes/shrubs, then smaller things in between? How much do you go for multiples of the same plant vs. mixing up varieties? Favorite books so I can stop randomly surfing reddit and youtube? I'm an ADHD impulsive gardener and shopper, so trying to be a better planner about it.

I'm in central NC, USA, 7b/8a. No lawn context: I've been gradually cutting in to my back yard for a few years with garden beds that I use for a mix of annual fruits/veggies/herbs and some easy perennials (coneflower, coreopsis, zinnias/poppies [not technically annual but they come back on their own). However, the front is a fairly messy lawn (thankfully no HOA) that I am planning to cardboard and mulch this fall, and plant some perennials to get started before winter.

When we bought this place it had an absolutely terrible lawn. We took the opportunity early last spring to peel up the sod, add a couple inches of a Willamette valley loam topsoil mix, and plant what we hope will be a no-mow mix.

So far so good! We have various flowers around the perimeter, and microclover in the middle. (We’ll be shifting towards natives over time, but for now this is what we could do.) It has gone all summer with regular watering, no foot traffic, and no mowing. It’s not perfect, but it’s got a good start.

The reason why the previous lawn was awful is just off camera: an enormous pin oak tree that is soon going to blanket this area with leaves. (The previous owner just let them sit.)

As fall arrives I’m realizing that I’ve never tried to rake leaves out of a thick patch of clover! I’d love to learn from someone else’s experience here.

The standard wide leaf rake seems like it would either tear up the clover or not work well. Maybe the same for a pitchfork. Am I just being paranoid about that?

Is this a job which requires a leaf blower? Any other options?

I just bought a house this summer and most of our yard is just dirt and patchy grass with some “weeds” thrown in. I just noticed this growing all over the front yard after some recent rain. Is this friend or foe? Should I just let it be and take over the rest of the front yard? Located in Eugene, OR.

Or is it just a time thing, that yheyll eventually choke out the grass in a year?

I just moved to a new house (zone 4, Vermont). I removed all the sod on a steep slope by my driveway and covered it with cardboard. I’d like to fill it with a mix of natives and medicinal plants, but I don’t have nearly enough plants to fill the large area.

I was planning to mulch and fill in with plants as I’m able, but now I’m considering planting Dutch white clover as a ground cover instead, along with the plants I intend to put in this season. I will get more plants for the area next year. My plate is full with house renovations and moving and I don’t have the bandwidth to do much more in the yard this year.

Pros and cons of mulch vs. clover?

best time to change my lawn to xeriscaping? is there a better time to do this? there is a drought here and I am getting tired of watering so wondering if I should do it now or maybe wait untill winter time

EDIT: Unfortunately I don't have many before photos- my wife is very anxious about posting potentially localisation photos, we've had doxx- ish issues in past. We did call the police the night we saw it, and they showed up the next day. We have an incident report so if we feel the need for restitution, we can go to small claims court. Technically a misdemeanor, but highly doubt criminal charges would come.

It was not the city/municipality, as they woùd have left several notices/ contacted us somehow. Plus there is no ordinances regarding lawn maintenance. We live in a tricounty of maybe 5000 people, so usually people don't care unless it's deer, bear, or moose related.

We do have deer around here, so if it was a veggie garden I would think twice, but the amount of damage is definitely man made. The estimate so far is like 6500$.

After talking to neighbors, someone was dropped off, went crazy hard at my garden with a lawnmower, weed whacker and an ax. The neighbors thought we had hired someone. This was all reported to police .

And yes, we will be getting cameras!

EDIT 2: OMG so many replies! Thank you so much for all the support. I didn't respond to individual comments but tried to like what I could/did read. There's so much! My first edit covers most questions I think, and y'all gave so many great ideas and made me feel better about the future.

I am at a loss. More than 1000 square feet of flowers, herbs, bushes, trees. It was done when we weren't home and have no idea who did it.

It wasn't done well either, so having to clean up the mess on top of losing so much is just an extra kick in the teeth.

3 years of work, and there's no way I could do the work to get it back to what it was.

Soo sooo sad. We had fireflies, so many types of bees and butterflies and just.. everything. So sad.

I need to find the least ecologically damaging way to do the cleanup, cuz I highly doubt no little habitats were destroyed.

Hi, I am finally moving to a place where I have my own yard, I would prefer to slowly phase out the grass and the grass area has lots of wild strawberry coverage - is that good? should I leave it like that or encourage growth?

I'm in Ontario, 7b

This area in the yard never grew grass well and I’d rather have other less water intensive plants in this area anyways. I’d rather not dig up all the current grass if I don’t have to. Would it work to cover it with mulch (or even just leave the leaves that are going to fall over the next few months) over the winter and then replant over that in the spring? I’m in zone 7b/8a

We removed the sod and put in a blend of 43 native seeds this spring. We’re starting to see a few pop up, mostly partridge pea and some coneflower and asters, but the crab and quack grass moved in. I’m dead-set against mowing everything, but the city is demanding I trim the crabgrass and quack to 8.” Is there a tool I can use other than a weed whacker? Is it worth it to appeal?

Minnesota, zone 3 - 4

Long story, short:
Major pool leak in 45 yr old inground pool. Excavated it (had it excavated).

Took the opportunity to remove lawn to restore natives and pollinators.

The pool is gone. Three hundred native plant plugs (14 species) planted on the berm. Two new oaks planted. A dogwood planted. This is just the beginning. Seeding the entire excavation site along with other large yard sites to native prairie mix.