Year One Lawn Removal

Mulching and de-dandelioning in NW Montana

Welcome to this week’s Garden Study Interview! Here’s the basics of how we do these:

• You don’t have to be an expert, just enthusiastic

• I make a document with some basic questions and send them off to future interviewees, so if you have ideas for questions to include in future Q&As, put them in the comments

• The goal is to include all types of gardening (container, flower, patio, community, desert, mountain, vegetable you name it) and zones; please be patient, I promise we’ll get to all of them

• The comments are what really make this space shine, so please do so with abandon (and go back and check out new comments on older posts. You can find all previous issues editions here.)

And as always, if you know someone who’d like Garden Study, please forward this their way — but make sure to guide them to the specific way to *opt-in* to Garden Study emails, which you can find here.

And if you’d like to volunteer for a future Garden Study interview, here’s where you sign up (it might take years to get through them all, but I’m committed). And if you missed our first interview from last month on managing a culinary garden at a winery, check it out.

Now here’s Anna talking about learning to garden in Northwest Montana and the step-by-step process of tearing out your lawn and replacing with plants and mulch.

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Name and Pronouns:

Anna, she/her

Where do you garden?

Northwest Montana in zone 5b, mostly working in south facing areas. We have a short growing season, generally frost free Memorial to Labor day, with temperature swings from the -20’s in the winter to the 90’s throughout the year. The garden is snow covered most of the winter, with just last year’s grasses peaking out. 

The type of garden theme is lawn replacement (that the deer won’t kill)! Annual plants that will come up with little maintenance, don’t require much water, and will bloom at different times throughout the spring and summer. 

Can you describe your gardening philosophy? How do you approach it, how do you think of gardening in your mind, what makes it feel valuable to you?

Philosophy feels like a stronger phrase than I have for my novice garden abilities at only two years in! Plant stuff, weed around it, be thrilled when it survives the winter and buds in the spring? Moving from a city apartment to setting up a garden lawn started with dipping my toes in the water with a few new plants. The confidence to rip up the whole lawn definitely only came about with professional recommendations.

I have loved the excitement of coming home from work every day in the spring and being surprised at what was popping up each day. However, my favorite part of building the garden last year and being out regularly has been meeting the neighbors — we joked we could barely get anything done after we pulled up the sod last year because every time we were out people would stop by and ask what we were doing. We have met all of the walkers in our neighborhood because of this project and love chatting (and getting compliments!) about all of the garden work. 

I’d love to hear more about your big un-yarding/sheet mulching — can you give us as much detail as possible? 

The first year my husband and I lived in our house we were renting — it gave us a year to wander around and imagine what house projects we would do if we were ever able to buy, including what we would do with the “lawn,” a fairly brown mass of plants that was at least 50% dandelion. Running the inground sprinklers only seemed to help some small areas and like much of the west we’ve been in a drought for several years, with water limitations that are not forecast to improve. 

Front Lawn in progress last year

When we were lucky enough to buy from our landlord a year later we started making a plan to rip out a good portion of the lawn and replace it with mulch and native plants. After some fits and starts on our own we hired the local native plant nursery for a consultation. They came out for a visit to talk about what we wanted and drew up a plan for the whole yard. We split it into three major sections and are doing a section every 1-2 years. Major shout to the Center for Native Plants for any NW Montana folks — they were enormously helpful and worth every professional penny!

Last year we started with the front yard. We rented a sod cutter to remove sod, moved some existing plants and planted ~70 new and mostly native plants, installed drip irrigation to all of the plants (a learning experience!), put in a garden pathway and then covered it all with mulch. We rented the sod cutter and a truck for moving material and were lucky enough to know people at the city urban forestry department who dumped 25 yards of free mulch in our driveway (small town benefits!). We worked after our day jobs and about one weekend day each week for six weeks to get everything done.

Front Yard Post-Mulch!

This year we intended to move fully onto part two — but after spending many hours last year pulling up dandelions in what I would consider the lower-density dandelion side of the yard, we decided to do a year of smothering the next section of the lawn and dandelions with cardboard and mulch before planting. We mapped out the new area, spread out a year’s worth of collected cardboard (it always takes more cardboard than you think!), and laid ~4” of mulch on top. The goal is for the cardboard to break down over the winter and to plant into this area next year, matching the other side.

The final area will be putting in raised garden beds inside a deer proof fence, who knows when! Check back for updates in 3-5 years…

West Side Yard, future home to raised beds

What’s your favorite nook/corner of your garden, and when does it really shine? 

I’m hoping for a fireplace/chair nook under the treehouse next year but for now our garden path is my favorite. I walk to and from work every day and love the way I get to walk through the plants on my way into the house. This time of year comes with something new blooming every other day. Looking out the window and spotting the neighborhood kids playing hopscotch on it as they walk around the block is also a highlight.

If a friend was starting with a blank slate of a garden, what three plants would you recommend as steady, reliable workhorses? 

1. Walker’s low catmint- one of the earliest spring bloomers, beloved by bees, and can be cut back after the flowers fade to bloom again

2. Karl Foerster grass- grows big and fast, grass tufts look great throughout the winter

3.  Showy milkweed- unexpectedly beautiful blossoms, spreads easily and quickly, monarch butterfly favorite. 

What are your garden nemeses, and how have you attempted (or failed) to deal with them?

DEER. All of the plants are technically deer-resistant but when the deer here are hungry enough here they will nibble everything. This year the plants are bigger and sturdier but we lost a few to their nibbling last year. I don’t have a trick for this, basically I decided to go Darwinian and see what can survive the nightly deer parade and nibbles (which has been most, if not all).

Dandelions would be the second. We’ll see how effective the sheet mulching is this year on the new section but last year’s came with many hours of pulling up dandelions and me despairing that this may be a yearly task. Despite removing several inches of sod last year, the dandelion roots were far deeper and hardier than that. Thankfully last year’s weeding seems to have made a big difference and I’m weeding for less than an hour a week this year. 

What still intimidates you about gardening and/or your garden? 

Why do some plants grow so well right next to others that barely make it through the winter? Why do some plants come back and some not survive the same winter? I’m still learning how to understand what my garden is saying to me and some of its rhyme and rhythms, which I suspect will take several years.

What do you most often think about (or listen to) when you’re out in the garden? 

I find moving mulch and weeding to be very meditative with or without music or a podcast. I usually listen to a podcast when I have a few hours of work ahead of me: Culture Study of course, as well as the Daily, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and this American Life, old school staples. 

What are your future dreams for your garden? 

I’m looking forward to seeing plants grow and spread and fill in, seeing more bees and butterflies, meeting more of our neighbors and hopefully inspiring a few of them to do the same! I hope to put an old ski chair lift under the tree house and use that area for fires and community gathering in the next year or two. And even though I’m trying to get rid of most of my lawn I hope to perk up the little bit that remains to be able to walk barefoot, and lay in the grass and admire the garden. 

East Yard — this is the side that was sheet mulched with cardboard and mulch this spring that we will plant next year. I can’t take credit for the treehouse, that was from our very cool landlord, but we’ll put a swing underneath and a firepit in that area next year. 

Finally, this is your chance to crowdsource freely from the Garden Study community. What do you want to ask? 

What recommendations are there for perking up plants that are having a harder time? It seems like little corners of the garden just struggle to keep up, despite having similar water and sun exposure as their flourishing neighbors a few feet down: compost refresh, time, accepting my plant children for what they will be?

Please ask Anna any questions you might have — and help her out with her questions! The comments are what make Garden Study great.