Why I Added Mulch on Top of My Grass

Jeanne
by Jeanne
10 Materials
$130
4 Days
Easy

My landscape goal for this summer was to do 'something' with the garden area in our backyard. When we moved into the house in June of 2001, the backyard was lawn from fence to fence & fence to house.

Building the garden


My first project with the backyard that first summer was to create a little garden area on the east end of the yard. I designed the space and then removed the sod in that area. The new garden lined the north fence, east fence, and part of the south fence.

I planted mostly annuals so I would have instant color but I also bought a few perennials and transplanted hostas from the front yard.

in 2006, we hired a tree company to come plant a tree since the one we tried to plant didn't make it. Happily, this Maple tree has thrived! The pic is a little blurry but you can see that it is nice and healthy and the garden is filling out! Pic was taken in June 2009.

We have spent a lot of time caring for our lawn; removing weeds, fertilizing, and watering it well. As you can see in the pics, it is a healthy lawn.

Over the years, as the Maple has grown, its roots have come to the surface especially on the north and east sides of the tree.

Large tree root


Here is the size of the north root. As the root has grown, mowing over and around it has become difficult and I worried about damaging the root.

With the root growth and the shade from the tree, the grass in this area starting becoming sparse. This is when I decided to make some changes. The patio around the bench is one of those changes.

Rocky soil


Over the years, I have continued to remove sod in my landscape projects. I remove sod by hand as opposed to renting a machine due to the large trees (and hence, roots at the surface) and very rocky soil.

Enlarging the garden beds


I started with the garden. The plants have done so well in that area that I have thinned them many, many times. I felt it was time to enlarge their space.

I removed sod from all three sides of the garden and relocated it to a friend's property.

Sod removal process


My go-to tools for sod rippage is a shovel and small garden claw. I use the shovel to cut through the sod along the desired length and width of the area then grab my garden kneeling pad, get down on hands and knees then use the garden claw to pull the sod toward me bit by bit, inch by inch. When I've pulled up a section that is approximately a foot by a foot, I rip it away from the grass and place it in the wagon. Sometimes it comes loose before I have a section that big but it's usually firm enough to hold together. When working in direct sun, I use our deck umbrella & stand for shade.

Adding ground cover


While removing sod, I also took out a foot of it on all 4 sides of each raised garden bed (this also went to Linda's property) then planted ground cover.

Preparing the grass


Now that I had the garden beds enlarged and ground cover planted around the raised beds, I looked at the rest of the grass and pondered whether I wanted to remove the sod or cover it up. I know I've said this many times in my landscape posts: removing sod is hard, manual labor. With this in mind, I decided to just cover the grass. I researched how to do this.

I read several gardening articles that said I could simply put mulch over the grass and that would prevent the sun from reaching the grass and therefore prevent growth

I did think that it might be best to first spray the grass with the vinegar, salt & Dawn dish soap mixture that I use to kill weeds (The mixture that I make is: 1 gallon white vinegar, 1 cup of salt & 1/4 cup of Dawn dish soap) So, I mowed the grass with the lawnmower set low then doused the whole area with the vinegar mixture, let it sit for a day then repeated the dousing. A lot of the grass was brown, but not all.....

Adding mulch


Anxious to get moving on the project, I drove to the landscape place and picked up a yard of fine bark. When I got home, hubby asked me if I was sure I didn't want to lay down landscape cloth and I confirmed that I was, then, I put the bark directly on the grass. I ended up using 3 yards of fine bark which covered all the grass with 3 inches of mulch. Walking on the bark was so nice (although you had to wear shoes since the fine bark can give you splinters) and cushy! Boy, did the whole area now look great! Park-like!

Too good to be true


After about 2 weeks, as I was watering the garden plants, I noticed a few green blades of grass coming up through the bark. Not to be deterred, I doused them with the vinegar mixture. The next day they were brown. Great! About a week later, those brown blades were growing with fresh green coming through the bark. Ugh!!!! I should have listened to hubby about the landscape cloth! So, yes, I bought landscape cloth.

Fixing the issue


I was so dreading this task. How much easier would it have been to lay this cloth first?! But, I took it easy and using a garden rake, moved a couple of feet of bark at a time, laid down the cloth and covered it with the displaced bark. I continued this process until the entire area was done. The weather was hot at this point so I started early in the day and worked in the shade of the tree.

Garden booties


I wore my rain boots for this task as I had spider bites the last time I worked in the area. Since doing this project, I have purchased ankle-high booties to wear when working in the yard.

Issue fixed!


Since I installed the landscape cloth, I have only seen a few blades of grass pop up. These have been in areas where I didn't overlap the cloth enough. I have simply moved aside a bit of bark where that was happening and laid down a piece of the landscape cloth.

Protected tree roots


I am so thrilled to have this back area updated! I feel that it is better for the tree to have mulch over its roots rather than them being exposed to the elements and lawnmower.

Finished project


Hubby has started calling this area our Park

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