I have been letting sections of the lawn to its thing and planted some wild flower seeds. Sooooo many grasshoppers, flies, bees, and other bugs have been popping up. Doing this because i hope my efforts can have at least a little bit of a positive impact on the local ecosystem. This is in my parents backyard (i live w them) so i cant go super crazy with my efforts.

Not a full nolawn but I’m working on it!

Hi, I have a quick/stupid question. (Zone 5)

I recently had my lawn professionally hydroseeded with clover. I plan to install native plants near the sidewalks and let the clover flower. Am I welcome in your community? I'm extremely against monoculture grass lawns that provide next-to-none ecological benefits.

Thanks!

I work with a native plant landscaping company in Tennessee (zone 7b), and Bermuda grass is one of our biggest challenges with lawn conversions. I'm curious to hear from landscapers or home gardeners who have found an effective long term solution outside of glyphosate, ideally one that works for homeowners who don't want to wait 2 to 3 years for a conversion or deal with constant weeding until the plants mature enough to shade things out.

Over the years on my own property, I've tried:

• Occultation (tarping)
• Solarization
• Sod cutting followed by smothering with cardboard and mulch
• Smothering with mulch only or with cardboard + mulch repeatedly as bermuda continues to grow through
• Lasagna gardening

After 5+ years, every area where I tried these non-herbicide methods is now lush Bermuda lawn again. The only approach that has actually worked for me is glyphosate.

I've also tried manual removal: digging down 8 to 12 inches and shaking out every bit of soil to remove all of the rhizomes. It works, but it's prohibitively labor intensive/expensive for anything more than a couple hundred square feet, and it's not great for soil structure either.

I've heard that mulching at least 2 FEET deep for at least one year (ideally at least two) can work, but most clients aren't willing to wait two years before we can even start planting. That much mulch is also expensive, can look pretty ugly just sitting there for 2 years, and isn't really an option for a front yard landscape or anything on a slope.

I try to explain to clients that selective herbicide use in ecological restoration is a bit like chemo for cancer, something to be careful and targeted about, but sometimes the most ecologically friendly option available. For example, solarization can kill beneficial insects, fungi, and bacteria in the soil, wiping out the ecosystem living there. Tilling and sod cutting can do similar damage while also destroying soil structure.

So two questions for anyone that has gone through a similar journey:

1. Has anyone had success eradicating Bermuda grass with a method I haven't listed here?
2. Do you have any great resources to share with clients to help them understand and get on board with selective herbicide use? I sometimes refer to Ben Vogt's articles and here are some other articles i have referenced in the past, but I am always interested to read new research.

• https://extension.arizona.edu/publication/converting-turf-xeriscape-landscape-how-eliminate-bermudagrass-lawn-using-glyphosate
• https://www.monarchgard.com/thedeepmiddle/to-spray-or-not-to-spray-garden-site-prep-and-reviving-biodiversity
• https://lovenativeplants.com/properherbicideuse

Thanks in advance!

(Included some pics of our property where we have converted 22k sq ft of bermuda grass lawn to native and edible landscaping so far!)

I've already sheet mulched the majority of my lawn but there is an area out front that I am not able to completely mulch over/get rid of the lawn because it is technically the city's. I've put some bulbs in there but I'm wondering if there is anything also I could potentially grow directly out of that area of the lawn to make it less depressing? Amaranth, sunflowers, and calendula all grow well in other rparts of my lawn and I'm wondering if sneaky I transplanted some seedlings there if they might be able to survive?

Do you like to grow things? r/nogatekeepgardens is the place for you. Check us out and be part of a community that just enjoys growing stuff and help us become a 1 stop shop for anything garden related. Hope to see you there

NJ Zone 7A

I’ve just hacked out close to an acre of invasive thicket. Currently letting the trees drop leaves but I’m wondering, if anyone recommends something native to keep the invasive down. I can keep mowing and slashing but usually that results in stilt-grass. I’d like to avoid planting grass seed since that’s invasive just like the crap I hacked out.

I’ve seen sedge plugs suggested but not sure where I can get them and seems like a lot of work to plant so many for an acre area. Ideally looking for something to toss and it just grows / spreads itself without becoming a thicket that you can’t even walk on.

Echinacea
Yarrow
Stonecrop
Catmint
Steppe sage
Ornamental sage
Pony tail grass
Lavender
Thyme
Rudbeckia
Sunflower
Ornamental crabapple
Blanket flower
Russian sage
Gaura

About a month ago, I decided that I hated the grass in my backyard. So I shoveled it all up, laid a bunch of flagstone and built a couple nice seating areas.

Started my yard re-wilding journey in spring of 2025. At the beginning I had no idea where to start, and a lot of the options I saw online (e.g., broadcast seed with pollinator mix, clover cover, etc.) weren’t actually compatible with my goals of native planting.

I wanted to be really intentional so I turned to the Wildr app (a Doug Tallamy program). When I started my yard scored a 30/100. The biggest factors were that I only had 1 native tree and almost entirely grass, which had been annually treated with herbicides (prior to me).

In 2025 I started small. Stopped using herbicides. Removed all non-native plants (bushes and flowers). Practiced low/no mow in the spring. Introduced a few native ground cover plants (sedges in flower beds, violet and sorrel seed introduced in my grass, planted a native tree and a small island of native flowers and tall grasses).

Fast forward to 2026, I undertook a few more projects like adding native berry bushes and more native plants. Just checked my Wildr score today, and based on my improvements and now I’m up to 48/100.

Wildr has been a great tool for me to think about what projects to undertake and to add to my landscaping. Next year let’s see if I can get to 60 or higher.

Zone 5a, East Coast. Happy Halloween! :)

I pulled up to their place today and it just looked so gorgeous with everything in bloom. Had to take some pictures! 🌸🌻🌷💐🌹🌺

Located in Melbourne, AUS. Equivalent to US zone 10B according to Google.

I came into a bunch of native wildflower seed mix for free that was collected locally. It's enough for about 1/4 acre and I have the space but the turf isn't prepared yet.

It's too much seed to grow in containers and transplant individual plants in the spring and I'd hate to try to store it for a year. I know a lot of it won't germinate if I wait to plant it until next winter.

I know it's too late to use glyphosate or to solarize. I could use a sod cutter but I'd hate to lose 1/4 acre x 2" of perfectly good top soil. Another idea I had was to mow the area as low as my mower will go then burn it all with my weed torch. Will that do enough to kill the existing turf? It's a mix of grass and weeds right now.

Are there any other methods I'm not thinking of that would allow me to get these seeds out by early winter (early December)?

I came into a bunch of native wildflower seed mix for free that was collected locally. It's enough for about 1/4 acre and I have the space but the turf isn't prepared yet.

It's too much seed to grow in containers and transplant individual plants in the spring and I'd hate to try to store it for a year. I know a lot of it won't germinate if I wait to plant it until next winter.

I know it's too late to use glyphosate or to solarize. I could use a sod cutter but I'd hate to lose 1/4 acre x 2" of perfectly good top soil. Another idea I had was to mow the area as low as my mower will go then burn it all with my weed torch. Will that do enough to kill the existing turf? It's a mix of grass and weeds right now.

Are there any other methods I'm not thinking of that would allow me to get these seeds out by early winter (early December)?

We planted this 2 or 3 months ago from plugs and clippings and it has filled in really well and done great up until about a week ago when we noticed one dead spot and then a week later another.

Not sure whether it's fungus on the leaves or slime mold but I thought maybe somebody here would know and know how to treat it.

We're trying a baking soda water mild dishwashing soap solution but it's not clear whether it's stopping it or not.

First time I saw the problem I thought it might be exhaust from the cars that Park along there and I dismissed it but now that I'm seeing another spot that's also by the curb I'm wondering if it is exhaust.

TL:DR - What I said in the title

Like the title says, I’ve looked at creeping thyme (I know it’s kind of a fad and expensive) but wanted to see what else would be possible. I do have two dogs that run around in our yard, which is another reason creeping thyme isn’t very ideal.

There was a video on Facebook of a guy talking about native Texas grasses and saying how there was one similar in effect to creeping time in that it stays short most of the year and you really only need to do maintenance cuts every three to six weeks. I can’t find that video again, even though I thought I saved it, but any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

So we're on the West coast of Canada (Vancouver Island) and are looking at sheet mulching our front grass yard. We are complete newbies at this (so I'm sorry if I didn't include the right info for this question).

- How deep should the new top layer be? I'm concerned as our lawn is next to our driveway and so am looking to try to understand what the new height might be and what concerns I should have about it (would I need to put new higher garden edgeing/borders next to it etc). I guess I have this fear that all the new top layer just continually shifts and falls on the drive (as I said, we're newbies at this so no idea how silly this worry is)

thanks!