Posted on by larksparrow

Goodbye, bermudagrass

Hello, new beds and more buffalograss! Our plan has always been to gradually decrease the mowing area of the yard. Ideally before our third-hand ancient lawn mower dies. Which we successfully sold in late 2024. This post covers from 2024 to 2025, our first year without the lawn mower.

In conjunction with putting in the first of four new raised beds, we also determined we will move the Salvia greggii in front of the new raised beds so we stop having to trim them mid-summer to be able to access the vegetables in the existing raised beds. You’ve seen them in the new place in recent posts.

We also replaced all the grass and non native forbs between the Salvias and the curb with buffalograss. Since the salvias get a good 3 ft wide, this will leave a path about 4-5 ft wild at the curb for us to roll the garden cart along and people to get out at the curb if needed.

The triangles between the existing edging and the new raised beds have become beds with Antennaria (pussytoes), sensitive briar (Mimosa), Baptisia bracteata, and gramagrass.

We will probably keep irises by the mailbox. Since essentially no pollinators visit them, it makes the mailbox extra safe for any postal people who might have bee allergies or fears thereof. however, we’ve since dug them out and replant them to ensure it doesn’t become a refugia for Bermudagrass to attempt to re-colonize the yard.

02/28/2024. Originally we were going to solarize over the summer, but Paula decided the soil is at the perfect stage of moisture for digging. She loves her digging. This will also allow us to seed the buffalograss this spring, instead of waiting until next spring.
03/02/2024. Paula made a lot of progress yesterday! She’s using it as an active break from her work.
Briar had surgery on 02/29 (leap day) so sitting in the mild sun on Friday (03/01/2024) with Paula was a good thing for her to do. She had some benign cysts removed (which she’s had before). She looks like she’s going to a pool party with her floaty donut and teal tshirt.
03/09/2024. More progress.
03/11/2024. More sun for dog and company for digging.
Eyelash Grama
Two Antennaria species
03/22/2024 plants arrived from Missouri Wildflower Nursery! For the corners of the new areas.
03/30/2024 Paula made major progress. We put out half of the nursery plants on the south (right side, with paver border) on 03/28/2024.
On 03/30/2024 we put out the remaining nursery plants as well as several Carolina Anemones and accompanying Texas Dandelions. I got some of the pavers moved, but we have more in the backyard I need to complete the edge.
A soil covered dark green plastic dinosaur. It is a low-slung crocodile type shape.
The find
Now on display
Major paleontological discovery on 03/30/2024 by Paula!
Paula finished digging all the target area and seeded it with buffalograss in the first two weeks of April. On 04/14, she moved all but two Salvia greggii to their new locations between the new raised beds location and the buffalograss path location. We trimmed them down before digging. The remaining two will go to a neighbor. We also found two branches that had started rooting and potted those up to go to new homes too. The Salvias were moved because I made a strategic error when I first planted them. They were too close to the raised veggie beds and blocked access to picking, so we had to trim them back 1-2 times per summer.
Digging
Spacing
On 04/15/2024 I dug up all the daffodils, which have finished blooming, and replanted them closer to the edging, to complete our opening-up of the veggie picking access path around the raised beds.
04/16/2024. A daytime view of the progress. I need to finish moving the retaining bricks out front to edge the Salvia and pussytoes bed. I put scraps of concrete by each plant to help it retain water. We’re currently watering the buffalograss seeds and Salvias twice a day by hose to get them settled in. In the wild, plants wouldn’t sprout until conditions are just right, so here we are forcing the process essentially to get what we want faster. Once established, the buffalograss won’t need any water from us. The rain will be enough! Likewise the Salvias and potted plants all got moved, so they need help to get established too.
04/28/2024 Paula got wild and decided we should just go ahead and solarize the rest of the yard. (She’s done digging up grass.). Briar and I are good at holding down the plastic. you’ll note in the background we have some buffalograss seedlings up! We got over 2” rain last night which certainly didn’t hurt. I also marked the iris leaves with Sharpie labels of their colors, so we can divide them after they finish blooming.
Paula had to go buy more plastic during the afternoon so we finished after dinner.
She trimmed the winecups back to the steel edging so we got plastic all the way up to the edge.
We let our neighbor know we will deal with weedeating at the edge of the plastic so he doesn’t have to. The damaged redbud from earlier in the week provides a convenient weight. We also used some of the remaining oak logs and all the rest of the retaining wall bricks from Judy and Miguel.
06/25/2024. In the last week or so, the thicker plastic has started breaking down in the sun and drifting away. I have been retrieving bits and tonight pulled away most of the front section. Most of the grass is dead though! The edge grass survived, so I will apply roundup to it if the weather continues sunny. I could also pull it, but the roundup will hopefully kill the whole plant including roots which I won’t be able to get all of for Bermudagrass. Time to order more Buffalo Grass seeds!
Bermudagrass has gotten out of control in the original section of lawn from a few years ago (north of the driveway). So while we’re spot-killing the Bermuda grass in the new areas, we’re killing back these sections too. They get too tall and need mowing. Interestingly so far most of the problem seems to be existing roots at each spot, not invaders from the neighboring yards. the white flags mark the boundaries and individual Bermuda grass spots so I can throw the round-up contaminated grass to the trash and not compost.

08/31/2024. In the past week we took off all the remaining plastic and started killing the few Bermuda grass bits left. Got a half inch rain this day and then seeded buffalograss afterwards!
April 2025. The middle area that Paula dug up looks great.
04/28/2025. Both solarized sides have a lot of annuals coming up, most of which are too tall to keep or not native. We’ve been weeding by hand. There are baby buffalograss coming up among them.

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