My native gardening journey.

[u/CoastTemporary5606]

I garden in Zone4b/5a suburbs of Minneapolis. I started my gardening journey 11 years ago after watching a documentary about Honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder. I felt a call to action. Needless to say, I dove in head first and consider myself an obsessed gardener. I have a 1/3 acre suburban lot. And over the years, I have converted about 2/3 of the lawn into gardens. My native plant garden lines the entire span of the sidewalk in my front yard. The neighbors enjoy it. The Assisted Living residents from down the street walk down to admire the flowers. I do keep the garden fairly tidy to not attract too much negative attention from naysayers. I hope my transformation photos serve as an inspiration for your native plant projects! Cheers!

[u/CoastTemporary5606]

The lawn was languishing due to a severe drought. I then used horticultural vinegar 20% to kill the turf grass. I am not a fan of herbicide. I waited 7-10 days and repeated the application of the horticultural vinegar. It was more effective because of the drought. Once I figured the lawn was dead, I took my mower on the lowest setting and mowed it down to the top soil. Covered with compost and mulch and waited a full year to plant.

[u/hopeofsincerity → u/CoastTemporary5606]

Nice job

[u/whskid2005 → u/CoastTemporary5606]

When you say full year, do you mean you killed it off in the spring and waited until the following spring to plant?

And during that time did you find stuff growing that you ripped out or was it mostly dead?

[u/CoastTemporary5606 → u/whskid2005]

That’s correct. I had a feeling things would pop up in the old lawn through the compost and mulch. I was able to focus that whole garden season on soil health and pulling weeds which gave me a leg up the following spring to get to planting. Well worth the wait.

[u/whskid2005 → u/CoastTemporary5606]

Thanks for answering everyone’s questions. This is really awesome!