Somewhat Verbally Abusive "Kill Your Lawn" Instructional Video Nice
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- čas přidán 9. 08. 2022
- Join our goddamned cult. Kill Your Lawn. Create habitat and eradicate the bland. create a native plant or a vegetable garden in your front yard. Killing your lawn and growing native plants is the best way to learn to identify the plants that USED to grow where you lived before the commercial automobile slum cesspool (trademark) was built. But most importantly, kill the lawn within yourself.
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We killed our lawn with cardboard. It took a little while and looked ugly while the grass was dying, but it was free. Now the front yard is all Chicago area/Cook county natives.
Old carpet works too!
Friend of mine has done her own and a friend's lawn into gardens like this -- cardboard over the grass and top with at least 2 inches of wood chip mulch. We're in the mid-Atlantic US where arborists are often looking to dump a bunch of chip wherever they can, so it's cheap or free in volume. Cut holes in the cardboard for any planting. If you're adding soil/compost (our native clay is shit -- hard and super depleted), throw that on top of the cardboard before the mulch. Works a treat.
New to Chicago here! Did you plan which natives to plant or did you work with someone to do it?
I killed mine with free wood chips over the cardboard.
@@bernardettea9046 Welcome to town! We did our own research, lotsa books ("Native Plants Of The Midwest" by Alan Branhagn was a helpful starting off point). There are a handful of really useful websites as well, and the U of I cooperative extension might also have some info. Best of luck, you're gonna love your native garden!
Did this here in Southern Utah! I’m so sick of people growing shitty lawns in the desert! I replaced mine with native Mojave Desert plants including Creosote, Chilopsis linearis, our 2 native Mesquites, Encelia farinosa, Acacia greggi, Quercus turbinella, Ferocactus cylindraceus, native Chollas, Yucca brevifolia, Yucca baccata and much much more! Now I have a desert tortoise burrow in my yard, and I have a family of Utah Banded Geckos that stay in my yard year round. I also have way more hummingbirds than anyone in my neighborhood. That’s what happens when you take out the shit, and replace it with the beauty of your native fauna!
Heck yes! Let it grow 😎
Yeah if you're gonna grow a lawn at least do it somewhere with regular rainfall.
That feel when Astroturf is slightly more eco-friendly than your desert lawn powered by sprinklers
Did the local city council start ticketing you for code violations? Did your neighbours start whispering in hushed tones about how disorderly your yard looked?
The sad thing is that it’s mandatory in many places to have a lawn.
@@devoidbmx1 People should also push for county/state wide bans on HOAs, or get people in your neighborhood that hate HOAs and take over majority control then disable it from the inside out, take away all of it's power over your lawn and other irrelevant bullshit.
Imagine all the animals lost because ppl aren't doing this.
Wtf did I just stumble upon? This is gold and all my lawn loving neighbours deserve to see it!
Edit: just recalled how I was having a chat about lawns with the developer that built the houses we live in. He said he doesn't let his kids walk over the lawn, then saw my lawn and said "hey that's not a lawn"! I should have been offended probably, but I replied "yeah, I like my clover and other weeds to make all kinds of flowers, kids love rolling in them". So glad I haven't seen him since!
👏👏👏
“Very hard to steal but doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try” fucking love this video 😂
Just don't steal from stores you plan on frequenting later. Stealing in or close to your hometown/semi-permanent place of residence also isn't adviced, makes things awkward with the neighborhood
@@mynamejeff3545 This guy steals
@@jaredroder2842 Where I'm from we like to call it "proletarian shopping"
@@mynamejeff3545 A little bit of quasi-moral expropriation
Our yard is almost zero mowed...just one small strip of native ground cover that is mowed because of the evil HOA.
They fine me every month for having natives...our 0.2 acre yard has over 320 species of southeast US native plants with at least 5 different mini ecosystems.
It is beautiful...so much more life.
I cant do much about the mosquito spraying from the county but I sure wish I could stop them.
#grownative
Thanks Joey! You, Doug Tallamy, Rachel Carson and Majorie S. Douglas are global heroes in my book.
I read somewhere that you can apply to the city or state to have some kind of native plants/protected lands status and HOAs have to honor it. Not sure if it works in your area, but prob worth the research to stick it to the man.
Look into legal options soon. The longer you keep paying the fines, the more likely it is for the HOA's argument that you are knowingly in the wrong to stick
HOAs should be banned anyway, they have become totalitarian micro neighborhood governments. Not sure why people want their home to go up in value or maintain it's value, just so you can pay out the asshole in taxes, more and more every 2 years? Ridiculous, and dumb as hell, I want my home to go DOWN in value, so my taxes go down.
And taking them to court about it worked in Delaware, so there's precedent in place to make native planting ungovernable by HOAs.
Threaten to install a HAM radio aerial if they don't fuck off and stop bugging you about the plants. if they keep bugging you, let them know that the Department of Homeland Security considers HAM radio aerials essential emergency infrastructure and they won't be able to do shit about it all unless they WANT you to build a HAM radio aerial tell them to leave you the fuck alone about the plants. If they call your bluff, build the HAM radio aerial and then threaten to build a gigantic bat house and let them know that the EPA (might be a different federal agency) will not allow them to penalize you in any way for building a gigantic bat house and unless They WANT you to build a gigantic bat house to fuck off and leave you alone.
Or you can switch the order.
1: Why do I have a lawn? It came with the house. It's currently dead because I refuse to water it during the water restrictions here. It's a blessing in disguise because I'd love to get rid of it and have flowers and shrubs local to the northeast instead.
Unfortunately,
it's probably not dead.
Just "Summer dormant".
Which is what lawn grass does during a drought.
As soon as it starts raining again, the roots will wake up & bingo-bango out comes the lawn mower once again.
But I do like your optimism on having a dead lawn!
Here's to dreamin! 🍻
@@gardengatesopen♫ I'm dreaming of a deaaad laawwan ♫ - also my nutjob neighbor with the 100 unvaxinated, unfixed wild cats is pissed off about my dead lawn, so that's also a plus. I hate the burbs.
@@gardengatesopen Yes, you're right. grass has that capacity to rejuvenate after even a long spell of dry weather, but if it doesn't, other green color vegetation takes its place. In the small section of grass I have left in our yard, I had a weed called three-seeded mercury that had overcome where the grass used to be. When I kept it short with our push mower, each weed plant got stimulated into a multi-branched entity. I spent last summer popping out hundreds of plants by hand by tugging near the base -- this weed comes out easily with roots intact. My neighbors already think we're oddballs with our permaculture and native plants yard, but popping out those weeds was meditative while I enjoyed the sound of the summer breeze and masses of birds that visit our yard. This year my eccentricity paid off and there was virtually no three-seeded mercury plant in sight! A little patch of grass instead.
@@gardengatesopen so just plant a shitload of native species and they'll choke the grass out
@i-love-comountains3850
mmmmm...
Have you MET Bermuda Grass?
It's the guest that never leaves.
But yes, plant the natives.
Keep pullin on that Bermuda. 👍
Hey Tony! I just finished DIGGING all the grass from my whole huge yard. I wore my KILL YOU LAWN sweatshirt most of the time. People do stare but they love it now. I will finish putting in my low water plants when it cools off. You are an inspiration!
Don't forget to get plants and grasses and trees that are native to your area! There are lots of resources that can help you find out what to plant!
Glad I'm not the only idiot who dug out the devil's finest lawn creation bermuda grass. A total pain in the ass, but my combination of cheap and stubborn kept me from renting anything other than roto tiller. I'm not sure how this method would work with bermuda grass, I'd be too afraid to leave it and use it as mulch. That shit refuses to completely die lol.
You legend!
@@johns.9452 Yeah especially if you're gonna be planting and watering soon after
I live in a city and have a postage stamp size front garden and my backyard is the size of suburban driveways. But it really improves my outlook on life to be see all the little critters at work on the flowers, the predator bugs out for their meal, the evidence of racoons or possums digging for grubs in the winter and once in a while I get visited by a beautiful butterfly. It also gives me a hobby as I think of improvements. Like Tony said below, it's not rocket science.
Some day, when I can afford to buy a house. I'm going to avoid any that are part of a HOA. Because if I want to replace my lawn with native plants, I should be able to just do it without seeking bureaucratic approval or paying additional fees.
Every home owners association is different. An HOA doesn't have to restrict choice of yard plants.
Is a HOA the same thing as a strata board? We don't use the term HOA here, but stratas are common and they're ruled -- often tyrannically -- by strata boards. If freehold neighbourhoods have HOAs too, what is the legal basis for their authority? I can't imagine how they could police you and your property beyond ratting you out for violating municipal bylaws.
@@nuynobi I'm not sure what a strata board is, but home owners associations (HOAs) are boards whose sole purpose seems to be about increasing the property value of all the houses in the neighborhood. And one of the standards many of them set is keeping a "tidy" lawn. The penalty for violating HOA bylaws or making major changes without HOA approval probably ranges from org to org, but it's usually a fine. If this sounds like a strata board, it might be that HOA and strata boards are just 2 names for the same thing (like how RMV is the DMV in Massachusetts).
@@brandonpiel8789 Here in Canada, the term "strata" refers to situations where a group of individually owned homes share some common property collectively owned by the group. The board exists to manage the common property. Usually, monthly fees are paid which go towards its maintenance. A condo building is the most familiar example, but houses can also be arranged in a strata.
I live on a cul-de-sac that used to be a strata. The road and septic field were the common property. When the city bought the road and installed sewer, the septic field was sold to developers and now there are houses on it. With no common property left, the strata was legally dissolved.
Most of the rules strata boards impose seem to be designed to prevent the place from looking like a slum, so property value is one concern that a strata board would have, but it's not the real reason for their existence.
With a HOA, is there common property? Like maybe the road is private, or there's a green space that the HOA maintains? If so, then it sounds like the same thing.
If not, there must be some sort of legal arrangement you sign onto when you buy the house. Which seems weird to me, and I wouldn't want to do that.
@@nuynobi that's interesting. I don't really know if there is common property between members of an HOA. That's a good question.
I stripped out about 1/2 of my lawn in my first house 22 years ago. I was a lot younger and stronger then and f..k sod is heavy! Turned out my neighbour used it to resod his back yard which was very lucky! I filled my yard with perennials and vegetables. I can't believe people want to spend their lives mowing grass, I have better things to do!
keep teachin Joey, if you only reach a few they can be the little knowledge seed for others. thanks for what you do. planted my entire front lawn with a mix of north american wildflower and midwestern wildflower seeds... three years later the various species are blooming in succession and theres more butterflies than can be counted. learned it here.
I moved on to a 2 acre block, mostly cleared apart from some natives around the perimeter and some big ass Eucalyptus trees scattered around. Most of it just grass, lawn really.
I've converted the whole front of the house into gardens, except for the grass that I drive on, park on and generally just abuse because F that lawn.
I've planted flowering native trees that feed the birds with nectars and fruits, give them a home, low growing flowers for the bees and bugs and whatever. The diversity over the 10 years I've been here has exploded. So many different birds, enough shelter and food to breed and do whatever they do. Not only does it look good and pretty, but when the birds are out on a nice day just loving their life I'm like "Nice. I made this shi..."
The back of the house, which is the larger paddock area is going to eventually be filled with big ass trees, monkey puzzles, bunyas, flowring Eucalyptus, all the good stuff. They're only small to mid size now but Rome qasnt built in a day, and a property cleared by goldminers back in the day can't be recovered overnight.
I've also planted natives in my yard and the diversity of fauna just goes up and up and up each year it seems. I get that intense positive feeling when looking around at it all too. It's a beautiful thing and almost makes it all worth it.
Sounds great, congrats.
Nice work, south Queensland?
@@itookallthenames Victoria, west of Ballarat where the whole place has been cleared from mining back in the gold rush days. Apparently this used to be all beautiful forests n shit.
I just love the Bunya pines, the aesthetics, the history of the tree etc so I planted a few 🤙
You’re doing great!! Keep it up
Lawns. Biggest waste of water , space, time and resources.
Lawn mowers, trimmers, blowers all construction to pollution
Yep lol, and there's heaps of better lawn covers such as clovers.
Not the least all the NOISE pollution!
You’re forgetting golf courses
My dad just planted a shit ton of trees in our suburban yard and the lawn just slowly killed itself over the years 😁 Our backyard is really small and in the middle of rural/suburban country, but our property (now completely covered in leaves and sticks) is a magnet for migrating birds. Multiple thrush species, ovenbirds, etc stop there for days at a time each spring. (My profile pic is actually one such ovenbird haha)
absolutely love it joey. the sahd stripper nice. I work for an eco landscaping company in south central PA and we have been removing a shit ton of lawn this summer for perennial garden beds and doing it by hand with a shovel is a real bear of a task. solid recommendation
also, love the tip of inverting the sod. so much soil is removed from stripping sod it really is crucial to keep it on site, particularly around new home construction where topsoil is already thin and compacted. using it as mulch and whatnot is just fuggin spot on. I think mulching it or somehow aesthetically doctoring that inverted sod tho is pretty crucial in terms of social acceptance and cultural diffusion nice. some stone mulch like you said would really "tie the room together"
PLANT MILKWEEDS OR GET F*CKED
how did you post this 13 days ago
On patreon
SAHD (Stupid American Horticultural Decision) remover.
Don't worry about the social acceptance, fuck them lol
Can you drop by the 610 to help beat the invasives?
When I was out watching the chickens eat bugs this morning I was reflecting on the great privilege of living so far from "civilization" that planting a lawn would be a sign of absolute insanity and proof of unworthiness of living in these parts. Meaning.. I'm glad I don't have to pull weeds or do anything other than let plants grow and watch rain fall.
That's my goal for life. I want my chickens and goats so bad. I hate apartment living so much
This is absolutely amazing. As a young lad I realized lawns are bullshit and it’s so gratifying to have that sentiment confirmed.
having a mowed lawn is part of my rental agreement. No rules about potted plants though, so I have them littered all over my yard. I let the native plants grow wild under my porches. Tasty wild berries, plus loads of ferns. Cute little frogs hopping about.
Loopholes 👍
I've turned my front garden into an allotment.
My other half hated mowing the old lawn and it would always get horribly overgrown. I said let's try no now may and get some wildflowers in the boarders. We both preferred it, then he said go for it.
So the garden now grows potatoes, onions, garlic, raspberries, strawberries, beans and peas. And native wildflowers sprinkled throughout.
The amount of wildlife we see in it now is incredible!
Fantastic transformation!
Chicago 🤝New York anti-lawn solidarity. Love to see it.
Thanks for spreading the word! Over the last 10 years, I've cut my lawn in more than half by sheet mulching with cardboard, leaves, and free woodchips (chipdrop). The bermuda is a beast to kill and it takes a legit year this way. Planting natives/nativars mostly, focusing on pollinator life cycle plants, here in the hot humid SE. Slowly the lawn is decreasing and the natural areas are increasing. My native rudbeckia is ugly rn but I won't cut it back b/c the goldfinches are insane for it.
I like your way of killing the lawn much better than using machines. Seems a needless effort, especially in dry areas where one could just stop watering and leave the heat and drought do the killing.
If you think your rudbeckia is “ugly” perhaps you haven’t the right approach. Check garden designer Piet Oudolf, especially his prairie gardens in autumn. They are stunning. He’s famous for creating combinations of herbaceous plants that are left to go to seed and dry and retain a high aesthetic value even when they move from green and colorful to shades of straw and brown. He’s not specifically an ecologist but his approach and style is very well suited to people who want to garden with natives in a more nature friendly way.
I've asked people not to use cardboard, it's full of formaldehyde, glues, and sexicides and pesticides! It's better to go to Goodwill and get old sheets or something
Lmao I meant INSECTICIDES.
NOT 'sexicides' ...wtf??! 🤣 Keyboard typo 😳
What timing, I just ripped out the bermuda grass in my backyard and replaced it with prairie short grasses native to my area (blackland prairie in N TX). Seeded Buffalograss, blue grama and curly mesquite last week and I've already got excellent emergence. Bermuda is a PITA to eradicate but it's absolutely possible. My method was to scrape/cut the top 1in of soil and rake out the bermuda runners from the soil. Like it was pointed out in the vid, gotta keep that soil. I then made a pass with the tiller to bring up the underground runners, raked those out. Since its been hot as balls the past few months, I took advantage of it and solarized the area with clear greenhouse poly, just to take another swipe at any runners that may have been missed. At the hottest point I was recording 145F+ temps under the poly. Not exactly the best option for the micro critters in the soil, but I figured it would be easier to reinoculate them than have to fight the bermuda. The goal is to eventually get the entire landscape handed back over to the natives. I've been raiding local fields/roadsides for native seed. I live in a text book definition of urban area but even so, you can still find TINY pockets of areas where our natives are still managing to survive. Start doing some scrounging around and you'll be surprised at what's been growing in front of you the entire time.
I have an acre of Bermuda grass, not planted by me, and have been trying to eradicate it...just when I think I have a bed free of it, that crap keeps showing up. I'm at my wits end with this jerkface imvasive.
Damn it I hate Bermuda grass.. I’ve been fighting it for two years now
Mowed oak leaves into my lawn season after season, and let whatever wanted to take over, take over. Now in drought conditions, I have the greenest yard in the neighborhood, and the softest, thickest moss I've ever known. Less work, chemical free. Grass spiders take care of the mosquitoes and roving bands of turkeys eat the ticks.
Last September I accidentally killed the grass in my backyard by leaving a shit ton of clippings on top of it cuz Im a lazy bastard who takes too long to clean up. A bunch of clover and other weeds took over and made a nice carpet, and now my backyard flowers up and bees and other bugs hang out all the time
I rent, and all my previous landlords HATE whenever I hand their property back with a prairie instead of the lawn that was there when I signed. 👍😎🌱
Sadly, they will likely just have it all ripped out and replace it with grass, then steal your security deposit and possibly sue you for all the costs on top of that.
@@rdizzy1
Very few landlords put enough effort into their lease contracts to accommodate that😂
Lol, now that's gangsta gardening
I read once that early American covered lawns in the 1800s consisted of clover and not the grasses we typically associate with lawns today.
I just did a lil presentation on this for school lol... I'd recommend looking into local programs for this especially in California! Mine calls it a "Lawn Bust" and we go and flip the sod with shovels, lay down cardboard, plant natives, and top with mulch. Done in 2 days and all for FREE
Would you recommend these same techniques for killing your neighbors lawn?
Yes and I would also recommend a fair amount of hockey regalia to be worn to prevent any potential blows that might be inflicted while your neighbor while you are busy trying to hack up his shitty green unimaginative death carpet.
Kill your neighbours.
edit: In hindsight, this isn't the best look. Be a better person and assist their suicide.
Copper sulfate is very cheap and in a aqueous solution is very very effective at killing roots and doesn't travel far from the original application site unlike other herbicides🎉
worked as landscaper for seven years in Long Island NY, and i used to argue with customers that want the "clean look" and got rid of trees and bushes.. I thought i was crazy. Now i got company.
I inherited my home from my grandparents in a residential area and the neighbors and city don't like us very much because we don't maintain a lawn. One neighbor is waging an all out war against nature on her property. She's out there every day doing some sort of mowing or weed whacking just to keep her boring green carpet pristine. She makes comments to us like "it wouldn't hurt my feelings if you mowed your lawn" and says things about how my grandfather would be disappointed to see the state of the yard now. It's mostly weeds but we have a problem with asiatic bittersweet.. Would the sod cutter help cut the spreading bittersweet? I just love the idea of running a machine that would give the neighbors a false sense that we're going to cave to having a lawn, only to facilitate more native growth.
Ask her, deadpan, what specifically it would take to hurt her feelings.
Just give her, "Well you can let him know how disappointed he should be when you're up there with him here soon."
Grand philosophy, though it could be made even easier, quieter and cheaper by using cardboard sheets overlapping and weighed down onto the lawn to prevent sunlight from reaching it. A week or two later, bring in mulch and cover the cardboard and cut holes where you want to plant shrubs and trees. Cheers Joey & Zac.
“Borrowing” from home depot has endless possibilities with a bit of planning,a high-vis vest and a can do attitude.
Currently in.... "dispute" .... with neighbors and city for my yard. My lack of "lawn". It seems that, by having an ecologically responsible property I am being unreasonable and selfish. It is simply NOT FAIR to everyone that has to see that mess of intermingled local diversity with colorful flowers and pollinators and LIFE.
Damn. I am SUCH a beast!
Edit: most of my more adamant neighbors are a little new to property ownership, in that they are the first of a few generations. So, they've had this vision and dream. The only thing of "green" they saw in the inner city was usually a mowed "park", or and overgrown abandoned lot. So, that's what I guess they associate with me and my efforts. I can understand that.
What TRULY FRUSTRATES ME is the complete lack of willingness to listen or hear me. To work WITH me (you want a boarder around this bit maybe? Maybe keep the more tall stuff in back u stead of up front? Here - have some wild strawberries! There's just nothing like them in the stores!) I could work with them. But, that's nor how it's seen here.
So, I'm scrambling to find a balance I can be allowed to keep before the city comes and mows down years of growth and efforts, and rips up spring ephemerals etc in the process....
🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞
This is a truly tragic situation for you. So saddened to hear the harassment from ignorant, mean-spirited people. Your conversion to naturalistic environs that is heaven to be surrounded by should be the norm, and it's mind-boggling that people want a sterile synthetic preened "look".
@@lanialost1320 Thank you so much! My newest neighbors are the biggest challenge, which is hard for me to swallow. I was already here. When they looked at the property and made the decision to purchase, this was already me.
My neighbor next door went so far as to say he wants all the critters dead. When I asked incredulously why he bought a over half acre green lot then, he just hollered "IT'S MINE!!" ... hooo-boy.
In Wisconsin, we've got a real tug of war between our progressive past (as I understand it) with all the preserved and cherished places, and people hollering for... control, I guess? Idk.
I'm working towards giving outline and boundaries to what is already there - ones that are immediately evident. Maybe post some signs, so those curious can get a little bit of info without feeling like they need to talk with me. I can make a few more changes after frost, but the pollinators, migrating dragonflies and monarchs, they are already counting on what is there!! I wince with each plant I have to sacrifice, in my efforts to save the rest.
I'm told I'm "extreme" and "don't belong here". It's kinda heartbreaking. My absolute whole and entire goal has been to explore better nature/urban balances, and to demonstrate and share and encourage the same! I feel such fail....
So, I'll keep trying. They are people that NEED to be influenced - I just understand nature SO MUCH BETTER than humanity!!!!
Still, there's reason to keep going - and thank you for the encouragement 🥰
Threaten them
I was fortunate enough to be able to afford a house in the countryside in Norway. The lawn is completely overgrown with wildflowers. I've counted about 25 wild species on my 0.25 acres, I am sure there are a few more. A lot of it is actually food plants (most people would be surprised about how much wild food plants exist). Fireweed, maidenstears and nettle can all be eaten. I got wild raspberries, lingonberries and strawberries growing in the rocky hill and some redcurrant for good measure. Happy to see it's a trend with wildflowers in the US, because here it's kinda frowned upon, but I still decided on it when I saw the richness and life that already exists here.
We need more videos like this.
doing this on my former lawn right now but with the sheet mulching method instead! got the cardboard for free at the dump, took off the tape, now mulching over 3-4 inches with some chipped pine from a local arborist (there are a lot of needles though, and some disadvantages to what I did). Waiting 3ish months for the rain then planting all natives. We're in the thick of a drought in Cali so gotta wait for some moisture to break down the mulch into soil and let the plants take advantage of it. :) thanks Tony
I just smothered my lawn (northern Utah) under a foot of mulch (free from chipdr*p), and only had to deal with grass poking out on the very edge where it meets the sidewalk. two years on and there's a healthy ecosystem in there, and tons of native plants.
My property was almost 100% lawn when I moved in 18 years ago, now it's about 50% lawn. You need a central open area. A nice back yard is designed like a room - you need tall hedges around it to act as walls, for privacy, then canopy trees for shade in the hot summer, and the canopy acts as a ceiling, but you also need sun, so the canopy should only cover 50% or so of your back yard. Then you plan out your yard like a room, except that instead of furniture you have the various outdoor garden amenities: a vegetable garden, flower beds, deck, patio, barbecue and picnic table area, pool, or whatever you want. A central grassy area is useful to tie everything together, and much like in a room you will have open areas just to get around. A lawn is basically just a green living outdoor carpet for these open areas. By the way, I never water nor fertilize nor use pesticides on my lawn. I have lots of rabbits, squirrels and birds who graze on it, and it's full of crickets, snails, slugs and other insects. If you look closely (and I admit you do not have to look very closely), that majority of plants in my "lawn" are not grass. I probably have more clover and creeping charlie than grass.
Yes, In my climate lawns, especially unmowed ones, are virtually 0 input. I have extensive (80% of my yard) garden beds and experiment with other ground covers mixed among the turf too.
This. Lawn is carpet. Where I live it comes in free with a mix of wild strawberry, crabgrass, clover, & dandelion. You can mulch it, cover it with any material you like, rip it out by the roots, flip it, slap it, tie it up ... I mean, um ... no matter what it comes back. Give it ten minutes and it will be full of maple that you'll never get out. You have to make beds, weed the beds, and let the grass be carpet everywhere else. Anything else is just a waste of time.
i mean ya know is ok nice to have a little bit a lawn if ya really wanna do a bit a grillin and loungin, smoking cigars in the sun and what not, but unless yer hosting the local fuckin little league team or something ya really don wanna have more dan a couple two tree hundred square feet a lawn. if you got like some half-acre full-acre type sized lawn ya gotta be some kinda sex pervert
I'm dead ⚰️ 🤣🌱
Great technique we’ve used in community permaculture gardens and demo food forests in our western city. Now if our state would implement Hügelkultur crews to utilize the bark beetle killed and infested trees in the mountains, we could conserve our snow loads and water longer into the summer & carbon capture the would be wildfire danger. Yet, this state has an issue with keeping their freedom to use drinking water on its false facade of green grass around its churches and city scapes in the arid mountain desert.
Lol, the churches
Why do I have a lawn? My house came with it. Why do I still have a lawn? The city won't hesitate to fine you if you have anything but a lawn under 6" tall, and the neighbors won't hesitate to make sure the city knows it if your lawn is too tall or if your yard is full of "weeds." I'm not in an HOA; these are city statutes. If I planned to stay in this home long-term, I would pick this fight, but I hate this city, and I'm not too fond of this home, so for now I just let the summer turn my yard into a crispy brown mess and mow my weed/grass mix down below 6" whenever necessary. I fucking hate it. I worked for almost 10 years in southeast WI and the Chicagoland area restoring and maintaining natural areas, and it fucking sucks to be forced to keep my property ecologically blighted in order to conform to a bunch of ignoramuses' ideas of what a yard should look like.
Consider putting LSD in the water supply
@@CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt I've considered many things. At least I can take pride in the fact that even if my yard has to be shit, I've done a lot of good elsewhere.
@@phasmata3813 I am in a similar situation. I threw down clover seeds, native violets, assorted native low growing wildflowers, and native ground ivy. No watering, no herbicide, or fertilizer. After one set of flowers goes to seed, I mow it. Disperse the seeds. Brown spots natives move in. I get it. Some of us have to be stealthy flower ninjas. 😎
Come to Honesdale, PA: no matter what plants it's made of, if you call it a "lawn" the town wants you to keep it under a foot, but nobody cares at least in my neighborhood. Also gardens are exempt from the one-foot rule, although I don't think I've seen anyone do a full-property 'garden' yet.
@@CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt damn I think I found my spirit brother. Greetings from Colorado Springs mate! I’m currently trying to get LSD in the water supply. These evangelist Christian’s that took over such a beautiful spot on the planet and ruined it could USE some psychs in they water. Will keep you posted…
Thanks for everything Tony!
Cardboard and wood chips, or just 8+ inches of wood chips will do it too. No heavy machinery needed. It’s free plus you get a head start creating soil and the accompanying microbiology.
Killed my lawn 5 years ago and replaced it with fruit trees and natives. Using less water than the neighbors, eating healthy, living in a paradise, gives me balance when I get home from the day-gig.
Currently using the cardboard method to kill the grass of about 30% of my backyard and piling it with mulch. The hares foot inkcap mushrooms have been sprouting in the mulch, so active fungal wood degradation is in full swing. Pulled the English ivy and Japanese stiltgrass, and am encouraging the natives in the yard to persist (got woodsorrels, violets, trailing lespedeza, greenbrier, muscadine, and yellow passionflower already). The yard has a lot of light level options to plant some diverse Southeast flora to make Cary NC a little bit less of a suburban wasteland/hellscape.
My lawn is all peyote.
It's legal as I belong to The Church of Get Off My Lawn.
Sounds more like The Church of Get Off ON My Lawn
@@timmillan6701 Yes. Blast off on this lawn
I called it “yardening” in my [even more] Hippie dayze... “Kill Your Lawn, but Keep on the Grass!” Nice.
Some chickens in a fenced off area works and is self fertilizing the “Chicken Tractor”.
I really want to get rid of my lawn, but my borough here SE PA requires that "Any portion of a lot, site or tract which is not used for buildings or structures, loading or parking spaces and aisles, other impervious surfaces, or designated storage areas shall be planted with an all-season ground cover". But little by little I'll be replacing patches with low or no maintenance ground cover and ornamentals, like the prairie grasses I'm growing in pots right now to transplant. Gotta feel good tearing all that waste of time and resources out of the yard
If you haven't resolved this yet, start parking in the lawn. The entire lot is now used for parking.
I never wanted a "traditional lawn" . Of course, I never wanted to live in a town either. I am one who has been criticized and called crazy all my life. I like Wild Plants. And WOW. What a waste of water most yards are. GREAT JOB Tony, educating the television indoctrinated masses. Thank Y💚U !!
Love it man! I dug mine lawn up years ago, by hand and it was one on of the best decisions of my life. I have the start of an indigenous/productive garden fulled with wildlife.
I’ve got a bunch of NotGrass plants I’ve put into my lawn.
I’ve also let tons of it go to “weed” and have thoroughly enjoyed identifying the newbies. There’s native geranium, and the dreaded common vetch and bindweed. Obviously dandelions and clover. We’ve got cleavers, and ground ivy, and purple dead nettle. And also a really nice ground clover that has sort of trumpet shaped flowers and grows where even clover struggles.
And in the back it’s all gone to meadow. With tons of Queen Anne’s lace and tansy ragweed.
The best part of both of those is that they attract parasitoid wasps and other hunters, which kill a lot of annoying pests.
Great video. I killed my back lawn about 10 or 11 years ago and put in garden boxes a green house and a chicken coop. About six years ago I killed the lawn in my front yard and put rows and walkways in. I even have a rooftop garden on top of a shed in the back. Everything is automated with either sprayers or drip irrigation, depending on which valve I turn.
I covered my lawn cardboard and piled grass clippings on top, I transplanted tomatoes into holes I made in the cardboard. The tomatoes grew great and had more than we and the neighbors could eat. Every year. I make the cardboard area bigger and now there is no lawn left, all replaced with vegetables Now I'm planting fruit trees on the edges.
Here in semi-arid California, drought-tolerant succulents are a water-conserving alternative to a grass lawn...
My neighbours have a lawn, they are fertilizing it, mowing, and worrying why it have a dark spots and so on.
I don't even mow. My wife is doing this, because I don't mind chaos in my yard. My yard is everything: some grass, clover, yarrows and other plants that I didn't learn how to call.
This fall I'm going to plant some flowers under young fruit trees.
this video should be the thumbnail video for the whole channel! Super important - when Nevada ripped out their lawns (and they have a huge tourism industry) - it decreased hteir water consumption by 10%!! That's what we need. Why do we have to be dying when we can be trying?
Goals. I already did a strip next to my driveway and put in all natives.
This is perfectly timed. I made my own mulch and soil. My newish pool cover is black and perfect for killing grass. You know my place. Bug ducking front lawn. Say goodbye. It's outa here. I ordered a shirt tonne of new seeds and spores. I'm ready . Might dig a small pond to. Got a roto tilla last spring Wana come by and see sometime? As soon as this snow melts I begin. Managed to find gunerra manicatta seeds. That's for later. Glad your on the same page. Hope to see u back here again.
My nice weedy (native) lawn supports host plants for over 36 butterfly species, and rivals just about all butterfly gardens.
I love how he gets all up in your face - it's needed these days!
I’m so much happier with a natural lawn. There are still patches of Bermuda grass but it’s largely clover and plants like mock strawberry and some plantaginaceae, some asteraceae, prairie sunflowers for shade, some banana trees that have been here since I moved in. My backyard is basically a forest floor with a blackjack oak, some sugar hackberry, one pecan, and one post oak, and leaves covering the “lawn.” Skinks and leaf bugs are common, as are possum and hummingbirds that love the trumpet vines. I live semi-downtown in a major city going through gentrification and my row house with a big yard is like an oasis for pollinators and other animals. Only thing that sucks is we have to kill all ants and wasps because my husband is horribly allergic to their stings and epi pens are like a million dollars. Sorry for the ramble, love the channel, love what you do, keep doing what you’re doing, GFYS, ❤️
Tangentially, what do you think of Quaker parrots? They’re invasive but they seem to be the only animals eating the seeds of Triadica sebifera. There used to be a native parrot where I live in the 18th century so maybe they are filling a niche. People are really annoyed by them but I think they’re cute and anything that prevents tallow trees from spreading is good. What do you think?
Gotta be gentle with your lawn. No good comes from forcing the issue.
In fact, lawn forcement is at the root of nearly every problem we face today.
Defund the lawn
Reform the lawn
Break the lawn
ALAB
@@caseywebb9580 fuck yes xD
Tony had me cracking at the beginning, that intro was funny as hell, good job buddy.
Hey you should clip your monolog at the beginning and put it on TikTok.
Wildflowers have taken over the lawn at the house I rent. In fall I cut the seed pods and spread the seeds. I've been super tempted to try a lawn of native prairie grasses though.
Love this guy. I killed my lawn by not watering it. Tilled the sod, mulched the crap out of it and have a host of Colorado native species like Asclepias tuberosa, Ratibida columnifera, Achillea millifolium, Penstemon strictus, a dozen more natives and we'll behaved non natives, and my crown jewel Acer grandidentatum. I was deep into botany 14 years ago and have revived my love of plants thru a native dominant garden. Even after a few months it requires very little maintenance
Oh my god, thank you!! I bought my house 6 years ago and since it’s from the 70s, everyone in my neighborhood planted Bermuda grass, and that crap is going to be hanging out with the Twinkies and cockroaches after civilization collapses. I’ve tried so many things to kill it and everything I try makes it lusher than before.
I love this man. I love Zach, I shared this with my husband and my daughter and I'll enjoy destroying the lawn so much. I need a video like this explaining how to make the cheapest privacy fence out of commonly found materials.
I have been watching you since you came to visit WA a couple of years ago. I have been slowly reducing my lawn as the kids have grown up and my garden has filled up. Every spring my wife and I wander the bush in South West WA and find more plants to grow. So the lawn is the weakest link 😁
We moved in to a new house with a huge lawn about a year ago. We tired to kill it last summer and re plant it with clover. But the grass didn't die enough. Right now it's just growing wild. This seems like a good way to truly destroy our accursed grass
I've been wildlife gardening for years, still have retained a patch of lawn though. Lawns can add to biodiversity if done correctly, the secret is not to add any chemicals or fertilzer whatsoever, don't do crap like scarifying or dethatching either, your lawn will soon have a multitude of native flora, well anyway.. that's how it goes here, in my little green corner of England. The Starlings seem particularly fond of decending on it in their dozens, so it must be holding a fair insect population as well. But you're right in saying the suburban monoculture needs to end. You can also do it all the really easy way, leave your lawn altogether, no mow, no water - nothing, then just sit back and let your land go through a few years of succession.
Not mowing the lawn is legit lowkey dangerous in the US, because of tickborne diseases, unfortunately. If you did that, you'd have to avoid going into the lawn entirely (or change clothes and do a check for ticks every time you come back).
@@talec_arashi We also have ticks and lyme disease here in England. Normally only in the 'wild' or farmland though. I also guess it depends where in the US you are as to how much of a concern that would be.
Hi Tony, thanks for this very clear motivational/ instructional video!
As for how we got the lawn, it came with the house. As for how we are going to kill it: it is basically already death cause as is offcourse quite obvious the lawn does not deserve water. We still have it because I neet to place the construction materials somewhere.
I'm going to hopefully buy a house in the next 5 or so years, and I fully plan on getting a bunch of cardboard from the local furniture store dumpster, slapping that all over the whole yard and chucking some mulch from the town dump on top. Then the permaculture orchard and native planting begins ☺️
I'm supposed to maintain my sister's lawn. Well I turned 1/4 into a wildflower field, and 1/5 into a veggie garden (that benefits greatly pollination-wise from the wildflowers being so close - lots of different bees showing up. My sister is warming up to it now - I made her some homegrown roasted taters with garden herbs and garlic ;)
Well hell, all these years I've been chopping and flipping sod manually with a flat-head shovel, never knew I could have rented a machine do to the most of the work!
Before you do it make sure there are no laws against it . I recall someone in Illinois complaining that neighbors gave him hell. They were part of the lawn cult.
Yeah sadly many people may be in a HOA where they have to abide by certain rules about the aesthetics of the neighborhood, poor bastards
My neighbors and the fire dept don't like native plants in so cal. I try to keep them all happy . It's a tricky balance
Just found this channel from the Wired interview. Great presentation, he clearly had fun making this one 😂
This has always baffled me. I grow native drought tolerant plants and food and wish I didn't have to listen to and smell the two-stroke engines of lawn mowers and weed eaters ever again.
Thank you Tony. You are a national treasure. Like I said before.
Tony Santoro President 2024
I've killed most of my lawn using pallet slip sheets and wood chips. I cut the grass low then lay out the sheets overlapping a lot, then cover with 6 inches of chips. I get the sheets free from Costco or other places that deal with lots of pallets, ask the box boys. The wood chips I get whenever I see a tree company chipping in my neighborhood, give em you number and address and ask them to dump the chips in your driveway. You can plant anything and the chips help to block evaporation and eventually turn into soil. I went mostly for food producing perennials, permaculture, sheet mulching, etc.
I made my whole yard native, including the lawn. I'm all about dumping the lawn, but a sod cutter probably ain't the best way to go if you want to avoid apocalyptic weed problems (solarize or cardboard pasta, but don't till).
I leave my MN Oakland-Savannah yard native. Ever since I started, guess what? No pests. Lots of new insects and interesting wildlife, but none of my outdoor cats got fleas ever again. Guess all the lacewings and weird other bugs I've been seeing are eating em. On top of that, no flooding issues, and little to no maintenance either. Hmm, wonder why?
Absolutely love the title!!!! 🥰🥰👍 Looking forward to watching it later!!! My day is brighter!! 👃✌️🥰🇨🇦
Jeez, doing that to Couch Grass just makes it stronger. I killed my Couch and Kikuyu lawn by the "feed and water to get lush growth then poison method, Then cover with 10 sheets of newspaper plus 10cm of mulch. My neighbors just saw "crazy lady moves in and grows lush front lawn, then POISONS the entire yard. I now have a low water native garden.
Wish I had this video about 3 months ago. I went the lazy way and sheet mulched the front yard. Check your local water dept for lawn conversion rebates.
Alas, my water authority only offers new toilets to poor people with existing toilets that flush 6 gallons per flush or more, as well as fixing leaky faucets for poor people.
No incentives for reducing irrigation demand, no incentives for rain barrels, no incentives for reducing impermeable land for stormwater runoff, no incentives for improving groundwater penetration.
It's like they want more business. They want to have to build bigger stormwater runoff waterworks, they want to sell more water, build more water towers, build more dams, build more more more.
There are places like West Philly Tool Library where people have quietly -seized- attained the means of production and loan it out to their fellow man. Public libraries have libraries of things sometimes now too.
Your channel is one of my favorites right now.
Great information in an entertaining package.
I'm a big weakling that is afraid of heavy machinery so I just smothered parts of my lawn in over winter. Taking a similar route for the native prairie I'm researching right now. I can't wait to see if the HOA tries to argue that my little prairie is an uncontrolled plot of weeds.
It’s a lot easier to layer cardboard and mulch on top of the grass for a few months in the summer. I did that and it killed most of the grass in my yard in Southern California.
It takes a lot more time to work down here in Georgia, about a year or so and I still have to fight the grass and weeds here and there. But yeah it works if you're patient.
I just went ahead and scattered sand across the majority while turning some areas into mushroom beds using plenty of cardboard and wood chips… since going vegan too we have alot of old meat in the freezer to get rid of so I’ve been leaving it out for the local coyote and raccoon populations, we’re already seeing lots of visitors!! Thanks for promoting the kill your lawn lifestyle!!
That's it, I'm doing it. I've been saving up cardboard over the last year so I think I'll go the cardboard/mulch route and see how it goes (fingers crossed though because I have some crazy persistent rhizomic weeds)
here is a log for the pile; i love this as a longtime fan i have played it for my family as they know my frustration with this phenomenon. i also cant stop saying the whole videya in my head too... too funny buddy.
You show me things i would never know, thank you Tony and Al 4 sharing n' shtuff.
I wish more people would like nature and not only their version. I had a pet, Captain Super Slug. I have tried everything. It could have eaten anything from my orchids to my "rare" cacti. But humble Sir Slime-A-Lot was happy with cucumber. Sometimes fresh Lichen. NEVER EVER ate a lettuce leaf - do you eat you blanket??? Or bed?! But people fight them in their pathetic gardens. My tomato and pepper plants are so big, even the goats gave up. So any slugs or snails are welcome. I don`t discriminate just because a snail has a posh home...
People usually fuck up snails due to being pests or too many of them dominating the garden but its good you can have them around no problem.
You don't really need to kill slugs, just deter them. A little coffee grounds (free trade of course) and slugs auto-hate anywhere you put them. I do this in my strawberries. The Mantis from my clover lawn finish off the other "pests" leaving me nice big delicious berries!
@@dethaddr you don`t understand. This slug was my SUPER HERO. The only friend and help against my depressions. My father found the slug under a mushroom when it was a baby and I raised it will all my love and compassion.
@@MrEiht ..DethAddr didn't want to kill them.
@@Isaac-ho8gh yes, I understood "deter" somehow :). Thank you for your clarification. I understood that. But I dont want to deter a slug but rather find another new friend. Since I have no garden but balcony I wont get a visit.
I swear this guys accent and vocabulary alone, is 65% of the reason you will do it (what ever he says), with the unparalleled botanical knowledge and insight and talent picking up the last 55%
What a surprise to see you planted a Montezuma and Bald cypress. I’ve been growing those for the past few years and can’t wait to plant them somewhere here in the east bay.
Bald cypress has a great looking trunk when it is you g with an amazing looking leaf system
In efforts to replace my lawn, I went with wildflowers, but I sowed the seeds too late in the fall, so not as many germinated as I had hoped. I got my seeds from Native American Seed, which are also based in Texas. If your city has lawn requirements, they have a native turf grass mix. It has several types of grass, one of which is buffalo grass. It doesn't grow very tall and can handle the heat and dryness really well. There's wildflower mixes for the various ecoregions across Texas. Pretty good stuff.
You are the best plant related person on YT man
i never thought i'd find weirder asmr than cody surrounded by bees, but here we are
"Home Despot"!!!! Hilarious. This video is likely banned by HOA's across America. Keep up the good work.
Just found your channel, love this shit. Hope you keep growing in so many ways.
I live in the southern butt of Upstate NY and I didn't have to do anything but wait til the hot mid summer and quit mowing. The lawn is like a wildflower farm now and it's too hot for the grass to grow until fall. Everyone that mowed has tan brown crispy grass; I've got pollinators and flowers.
I'm a big fan of the wood chips over cardboard technique. Chips are free from Chicago dept of forestry, up by Rose Hill cemetery up there on Western. Right by half acre brewing. Maybe get some beer with your mulch while you're up there? K.
Around where I live in the Owens Valley there grow meadows of saltgrass (Distichlis spicata), which makes a wonderful turf substitute and in the right soil takes almost no water. The saltgrass grows over most of the Western US. Unmowed it looks the best, beautiful glaucous color all the time, and especially lovely in bloom; but it can be mowed for the kiddie's play area or to assuage the Nazi HOA people. I am plugging the old lawn area in my yard with it in hopes that the existing bermuda will not outcompete it. Mother nature designs the best gardens of all.
Using grasses native to your area is best. It keeps the clean look and keeps the HOA satisfied.
It warms my heart to see the native flowers and weeds encroach further and further every year into the parts of our yard that are still grass. We've got too much shit to do to devote any time to killing our lawn, so letting it slowly be eaten alive by natives is the next best thing 🤌🤌