Method to minimize yard work

[ducknald_don]

I recently read that the UK would need to go back to 2002 levels of electricity generation to cope with the whole fleet moving to EV's.

[7Wannabe5]

Lawn grass represents 3rd largest crop. Huge waste of resources. Lawn grass seed is preferred diet of the Canada Goose and why its population is currently majority urban and booming along with the humans.

OTOH, a lawn is much better than concrete/asphalt cover in terms of absorbing torrential climate change downpours.

[Sclass]

Lawns in Los Angeles are just stupid. I keep my mowing down by not watering. The lawn is seasonal with the rains. Right now it’s dried grass. In winter it’ll become dandelion if it rains. No grow no mow.

The neighbors hate it. They have perfect lush green grass.

My home in Orange County has green grass. We have an HOA that fines you if your lawn is ugly. It’s really stressful. A balance between keeping my water bill low and keeping the HOA happy. I want to grab them by the ears and scream “we are in a drought for crying out loud!” They fine for brown spots.

I have started experimenting with urine resistant grass. My front lawn has spots after being turned into a dog potty by my neighbors. They pick up the poop but the dog urine burns a spot on their favorite place. I planted urine resistant grass in those spots and it seems to be working out. To the casual eye it almost passes for normal lawn grass. It’s a very tough strain of grass though and seems to grow well in dog urine.

What a waste of time. Silly.

[Gilberto de Piento]

I'm interested in minimizing yard work too. I am going to to try putting down a lot of mulch where there is bare dirt between the shrubs and flowers in hopes of blocking weeds from growing. I'd also like to fill in more area with plants that are capable of blocking the weeds on their own, like hostas. I'm also reshaping edges so I can push the reel mower in loops without stopping and mow right up to the edge of the mulch so I don't have to trim it with clippers.

I posted the above back in 2019. I'm still fighting the good fight. The mulch worked well for about 3 years but will need to be done again in 2022. It costs about $200 and maybe 8 hours of work each time. I'm going to use cardboard underneath this time. I'm still trying to fill in with enough plants that the mulch is only needed at the edge of the beds but I'm slowed down because I don't want to pay for plants and have limited time.

Much of the beds are now filled with plants that don't need maintenance other than cutting down in the fall and do a great job of blocking weeds. A few outside of the garden are edible. I'm trying to find the right balance between the two but I'm valuing low maintenance over food and looks more and more.

I still have one large 20' x 50' shady bed that is a huge battle. I've cleared all the weeds from it a few times but somethings always comes back because its mostly bare ground without them. I'm planning to expand the lawn to half of it and fill the other half by dividing up existing hostas, etc. and replanting throughout. The bed is just too big for me to maintain as it is. It's not the best solution but I really need to stop the weed removal treadmill. Later I can replace with more interesting / useful plants if I can come up with something else that will work.

My lawn is a mix of very old weak grass, clover, and creeping charlie right now. I can just keep mowing it as is but the creeping charlie is very good at quickly spreading out of the lawn and creates lots of weeding work as it rapidly tries to take over the garden and beds. I'd like to get rid of it. The options seem to be chemicals (not appealing) and smothering the whole lawn and starting over. It doesn't seem realistic to hand weed the creeping charlie out of the lawn because it spreads way too fast and is hard to pull. It doesn't come out whole like a dandelion. It's all fairly sparse so I'm thinking about mowing it super short, raking it out, and overseeding with a "bee lawn" or just regular grass seed mix. The creeping charlie would still be there but maybe the other plants will fight it a bit. I did have a weird idea. I noticed that foot traffic kills the creeping charlie but not the grass. I wonder if you could somehow artificially create traffic all over the lawn (drive lawn tractor on it every day for a while?) to kill the charlie only and then overseed with grass.

I've thought about minimizing or replacing the lawn but I do use much of it for hanging out and the alternatives don't seem to meet my needs (though at least they are allowed in my area). Prairie is nice but can't be walked on and I'm not sure if it keeps out weeds (don't want to end up with a wall of thistle). Annuals can't be walked on. A vegetable garden would be a lot of work and then using the vegetables would be even more work and you can't walk on it. I think I'm stuck with a lawn.

[chenda]

How about building a lovely big pond ?

I do like a pond.

[Gilberto de Piento]

How about building a lovely big pond ?

I have some pond experience. They are pretty and attract wildlife but they require a lot of maintenance too.