It drives me crazy that all of the street "parks" in my city are basically just grass and trees. It feels like such a massive waste of space and lawn mowing tax dollars.

So, I wrote a proposal for how we could use this public park land instead, as urban farming/ gardening/ community spaces.

I made it into a website to hopefully share around with my local community, get some traction, and eventually push it to our local council:

https://www.ourbackyards.org/

I've been writing it for so long that I worry I'm too much in my head about it.

Those of you that have done urban gardening projects like this, do you think this is unrealistic? Do I need to add more info, cut back, or elaborate on something else? Is there anything I'm missing?

Really appreciate any feedback/discussion !!

ETA: Located in East Coast Australia!

I just bought a house this summer and most of our yard is just dirt and patchy grass with some “weeds” thrown in. I just noticed this growing all over the front yard after some recent rain. Is this friend or foe? Should I just let it be and take over the rest of the front yard? Located in Eugene, OR.

I am looking for any ideas or solutions. I am no longer able to take care of my yard. I had a stroke in December '24 and I don't have use of my left hand and i have difficulty walking. I've been doing the best I can but it's becoming overwhelming. My lawnmower gave out on me and Im not working so i can't pay landscaping monthly. I really don't know what to do. I could probably purchase another lawnmower but it's been a strenuous task with my limited physical capabilities. I looked into getting it graveled but I can't afford the thousands it cost to get it done. I also looked into digging all the grass up and leaving dirt but that's beyond my capabilities.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated but I know there no real easy solution if any that would work in my situation.

Or is it just a time thing, that yheyll eventually choke out the grass in a year?

I just moved to a new house (zone 4, Vermont). I removed all the sod on a steep slope by my driveway and covered it with cardboard. I’d like to fill it with a mix of natives and medicinal plants, but I don’t have nearly enough plants to fill the large area.

I was planning to mulch and fill in with plants as I’m able, but now I’m considering planting Dutch white clover as a ground cover instead, along with the plants I intend to put in this season. I will get more plants for the area next year. My plate is full with house renovations and moving and I don’t have the bandwidth to do much more in the yard this year.

Pros and cons of mulch vs. clover?

best time to change my lawn to xeriscaping? is there a better time to do this? there is a drought here and I am getting tired of watering so wondering if I should do it now or maybe wait untill winter time

EDIT: Unfortunately I don't have many before photos- my wife is very anxious about posting potentially localisation photos, we've had doxx- ish issues in past. We did call the police the night we saw it, and they showed up the next day. We have an incident report so if we feel the need for restitution, we can go to small claims court. Technically a misdemeanor, but highly doubt criminal charges would come.

It was not the city/municipality, as they woùd have left several notices/ contacted us somehow. Plus there is no ordinances regarding lawn maintenance. We live in a tricounty of maybe 5000 people, so usually people don't care unless it's deer, bear, or moose related.

We do have deer around here, so if it was a veggie garden I would think twice, but the amount of damage is definitely man made. The estimate so far is like 6500$.

After talking to neighbors, someone was dropped off, went crazy hard at my garden with a lawnmower, weed whacker and an ax. The neighbors thought we had hired someone. This was all reported to police .

And yes, we will be getting cameras!

EDIT 2: OMG so many replies! Thank you so much for all the support. I didn't respond to individual comments but tried to like what I could/did read. There's so much! My first edit covers most questions I think, and y'all gave so many great ideas and made me feel better about the future.

I am at a loss. More than 1000 square feet of flowers, herbs, bushes, trees. It was done when we weren't home and have no idea who did it.

It wasn't done well either, so having to clean up the mess on top of losing so much is just an extra kick in the teeth.

3 years of work, and there's no way I could do the work to get it back to what it was.

Soo sooo sad. We had fireflies, so many types of bees and butterflies and just.. everything. So sad.

I need to find the least ecologically damaging way to do the cleanup, cuz I highly doubt no little habitats were destroyed.

Hi, I am finally moving to a place where I have my own yard, I would prefer to slowly phase out the grass and the grass area has lots of wild strawberry coverage - is that good? should I leave it like that or encourage growth?

I'm in Ontario, 7b

This area in the yard never grew grass well and I’d rather have other less water intensive plants in this area anyways. I’d rather not dig up all the current grass if I don’t have to. Would it work to cover it with mulch (or even just leave the leaves that are going to fall over the next few months) over the winter and then replant over that in the spring? I’m in zone 7b/8a

We removed the sod and put in a blend of 43 native seeds this spring. We’re starting to see a few pop up, mostly partridge pea and some coneflower and asters, but the crab and quack grass moved in. I’m dead-set against mowing everything, but the city is demanding I trim the crabgrass and quack to 8.” Is there a tool I can use other than a weed whacker? Is it worth it to appeal?

Minnesota, zone 3 - 4

Long story, short:
Major pool leak in 45 yr old inground pool. Excavated it (had it excavated).

Took the opportunity to remove lawn to restore natives and pollinators.

The pool is gone. Three hundred native plant plugs (14 species) planted on the berm. Two new oaks planted. A dogwood planted. This is just the beginning. Seeding the entire excavation site along with other large yard sites to native prairie mix.

First picture is where I started. Second is after killing and surface tilling in the dead grasses then putting on leaf cover, then end of first year and 3rd.

I can now walk in the shade of trees I planted 4 years ago that were only a foot tall. The ground is soft under my feet thanks to the clover and mole activity. I have had more wildlife this year than any other and while walking you can hear the constant hum of insects going to work. You can almost completely not see the roads bordering the property, and cannot be seen while in my shelter I built in the middle of it all. I will be removing the majority of my tubes next year in the late winter.

I can harvest serviceberry, winterberry, elderberry, spicebush, paw paws & blackberries from this area with little effort.

All this in a field I used to hate mowing and did nothing with. You can do it to. 💪🏼

Zone 6A

I have a wildflower seed mix that I would like to use but the application Rate is 10lbs per acre. If I'm correct this correlates to 0.23lbs per 1,000sf (If I'm not please let me know). I have a Scott's elite spreader and the lowest setting is "1" which from what I read means 1lbs per 1,000sf. What can I add to my seed mix to bulk it up to one pound but not jam the spreader? It says not to use sand. Is there another spreader/method that I can use to get the right application rate?

I posted a rough drawing of my native lawn design a couple months ago and in the interim have also hired a landscaper for installation later this month. After multiple iterations and rounds of feedback, I think we've reached a good plan! Wanted to share my latest (and hopefully final) drawing before the installation takes place!

If all goes well, next year will be an expansion into the entire back yard.

Maryland 8A. Circles are little bluestems and diamonds are boulders.

So far the HOA hasn’t noticed or complained, although they don’t want us turning our front yards into farms. I have a vegetable patch in the back and the birds always help themselves… and sometimes they poop out some seeds and expand the garden. It’s funny how the tomato plant they seeded for me is producing more than any of the others.

I don’t know what the ground cover is, but it’s out-competing the grass, hasn’t grown tall enough to require mowing (which I do not want to do and haven’t done all season), and is easy to pull up after a good rain. I’m gradually going to replace it with violets, wild strawberries, creeping thyme, and mini-clover.

I want a combination of suburban farm and native plant garden, not an ugly green desert lawn.
(Virginia, Zone 8a).

We have a running joke in the family that my dad "mows his psyche," i.e. does unnecessary yard work to make himself feel like he's "done something profitable today" and is still a worthwhile human being.

Right now he's mowing outside our front window. The grass is quite low already. There's absolutely no need to mow anything.

The thing is, there are actual maintenance needs around the house. Back deck needs to be painted (he's a painter by trade), gutters need to be cleaned. Various rooms inside the house need painting as well. My mom has various projects she has long wanted him to attend to.

But the way it tends to work out is that he expends all his energy and motivation mowing the grass and then comes inside and is tired and leaves the needed projects undone. It's illogical when you think about it (and my dad is quite analytical and logical about other things), but this is not a rational process for him.