AusBonsai

its been a long and well fought battle but ive come out alive... mums finally going to let me dig up her lawn to make way for a grow bed

the area is 150cm x 320cm only little, but with our backward at capacity i think ive done well
how can i remove the grass and stop it from coming back??

have no idea what the soil is like yet either.

Do you know what type of lawn it is? I would suggest removing a fair amount of soil, along with the lawn. Make sure you edge the growbed with some timber, and leave a channel about 50mm wide around the boarder. The CAREFULLY roundup in the channel every few weeks. The lawn will learn NOT to grow in the channel. I have a channel around all of my garden beds at home and it hasn't grown into the channel...

H i Bazron , mate a grow bed close to the house is not a good idea . Constant moisture close to foundations/stumps is detrimental to the stability of the structure be it concrete or timber . A nice area in the middle of the lawn would be better , you could put a border of colour around it to hopefully appease the Boss or a strip along a north/south fence would also be a better option .

Your bonsai trees can actually sit quite comfortable in any existing garden beds , plus you could maintain the garden beds pleasing all concerned .

Cheers Alpine .

bazron wrote: how can i remove the grass and stop it from coming back??

roundup.

I made a small grow bed about six months ago by clearing some grass with roundup then building a raised garden bed on top of it, its only 20cm tall but having it off the ground makes it a lot easier to control weeds. I waited about a month to plant in it though just to make sure there was no roundup left in the soil, during that month I threw grass clippings and vege scraps in the grow bed and by the time it came to plant there were more worms than ive ever seen in one spot in my life

Raymond i have no idea what type of grass it is.

Ian in the middle of the yard is where i originally wanted it but the foot was down on that one.
didnt even think of the affect the moister would have on the decking.. oops. ahh well u live u learn haha


thanx for your replies everyone...

the grass looks like kikuyu to me..... when I was mowing lawns for a job I hated kikuyu

If it is Kikukyu, it is gonna be hard to stop it returning to your grow bed. That shari will grow through concrete... Lots of Roundup, regularly

You could always leave a edge/row of square pavers between the house and the grow bed? Sure it reduces the size of your grow bed but some grow bed is better than no grow bed-that will also give you access to the back of the bed rather than walking trough it. You would need to plant a deep border with any live grass. A thick layer of mulch will also help control any weed/grass growth once the area has been sprayed with roundup.

If you are planting in the ground then do not use roundup on the lawn! That stuff stays in the soil for years and will affect your future plants.

k2bonsai wrote:If you are planting in the ground then do not use roundup on the lawn! That stuff stays in the soil for years and will affect your future plants.

Roundup is absorbed thru the foliage only. you could pour it on the roots and have no affect.
I regularly spray the soil / substrate on my Bonsai to kill persistent weeds with no ill efects.

When I moved into my new house a few years ago, I killed all the existing grass and weeds with Roundup, then rotary hoed 2 weeks later and relayed 400Sqm of turf ( Buffalo) on it and all was great.

Check out page 3 on this fact sheet, Replant within 24 hours or 3 days depending on product.
http://www.scotts.com/smg/templateFrame ... eFacts.pdf

Ken

Hi,
We removed half our front lawn a few years ago. We put down a weed mat and covered that with a thick layer of mulch. This was left for a few months to die. When putting in plants I cut a cross shape in the weed mat and cover over with the corners of the cut mat, also replacing the mulch. It has worked well for us. If you really want to be sure I would recommend digging out the turf first so you don't get it growing thru. The only lawn we have growing there is wind blown seed. You will probably need to keep on top of the edges, or put in some nice garden boarder that the boss can choose. Keep her happy with adding stuff that looks nice, preferably something with flowers