Leaf the grass out of it!

Because I don't particularly enjoy spending my weekend mowing the lawn...we are testing a way to get rid of it. I know that many people strive for a perfect lawn and struggle over maintaining it. We prefer plants.

We will be keeping some of it, but not the entire half acre, that's just too much. The electric mower cannot compete with it's speed of growth during the spring and I would literally have to mow a section every day.

So this is our test. We have a very large mature Maple tree in the front yard that rains down several square yards of leaves each autumn. This last year we piled them in the driveway to let them decompose over the winter. Yesterday, in the 90 degree heat, we moved them over to the grassy section next to our lawn and the material was ripe with nutrients and other great things for the garden. Nature is nifty that way.

The idea is that we will be able to smother the grass while amending the soil at the same time! If this works as we expect it will not only help us remove the lawn, but also make a great start for a little garden section of the yard.

If this works as planned, we will be able to remove a portion of the lawn beneath the Maple tree and not have to worry about carting away a ton of leaves each fall. We could just rake it off the lawn that we want to keep and into the planted beds. Nature intended for her leaves to decompose on the ground where they fell anyway.