Backyard Transformation - Lush Landscape In Place Of Grass Lawn

Convert your grass lawn to a native habitat landscape and food garden by way of sheet mulching.
In this episode we’ll chronicle how we converted our backyard grass lawn to our personal national geographic location and food forest like garden. We’d like to share our experience in the hope you may learn something that you can apply to your own situation. We’ll work our way backwards from what we have in the garden currently to the beginning.
Our one third acre property is in USDA Zone 9A.
To attract birds, bees and butterflies we chose to plant mainly perennial ornamentals that are considered native to the area. Please see the description for the list of plants we currently have growing in the garden.
For reference we used the list of trees and plants from the Native Plant Society of Texas Houston branch.
Replacing your lawn with plant types that have grown and survived in your region helps build healthy soil and create a place for birds, butterflies and bees and other wildlife you otherwise would not normally see with a grass lawn. Start your own vegetable garden or backyard fruit orchard beyond a yard that requires regular mowing and edging.
We worked in non particular sequence there were times where we felt it best to put the trees in the ground first and sheet mulch afterwards and there were places in the yard where we laid down cardboard first put hardwood mulch down on top and let the section sit.
Some things to remember when starting your garden:
Decide what plants you’ll be growing ahead of time to make the most out of your garden design. When buying plants, check to see whether what you’re buying will last just a season or for years to come.
Annuals - live for a certain period of time, often just a season
Perennials - survive summer and winter to grow year after year
Cut down the work of having to replant every year by filling your garden with some perennials. Figure out your USDA hardiness zone ahead of perennial shopping to determine whether or not the plants can withstand your region’s environmental conditions.
Before plant shopping, know your:
Hardiness zone - For example ours is Zone 9A
Garden sunlight levels
Average regional rainfall
Yearly temperature lows and highs
Mulching is a technique of laying cardboard or newspaper over an existing
lawn and then topping it off with wood mulch the layers break down naturally to feed the soil with microbes creating a vibrant ecosystem which is going to make the soil nutrient rich that make for healthy and vibrant plants sheet mulching is also in an ideal way to suppress weeds.
Annuals - live for a certain period of time, often just a season
lawnlove.com/blog/tips-for-pl...
Perennials - survive summer and winter to grow year after year
lawnlove.com/blog/tips-for-pl...
List of Trees:
Burr Oak Tree
Red Oak tree
Wax Myrtle
Magnolia Trees
Yaupon Holly
Pineapple Guava Tree
Fruitless Olive Tree
Fig Tree
Satsuma Mandarin Orange Tree
Dwarf Peach Tree
4 in 1 Stone Fruit Cocktail Tree
3 in 1 Apple Tree
Fuyu Persimmon
Moringa
More Blood Orange Tree
Avocado
Calamondin
Meyer Lemon
Loquat
List of Plants/Bushes
Duranta
Texas Rock Rose
Cuphea
Texas Sedge
Wine Cup
Buttercup
Yellow Jessamine
Muscadine Grapes
Phlox
Mexican Heather
Lantana
Firebush
Milkweed
Mexican Petunia
Gardening Resources:
Frank's Nursery for a myriad of garden supplies like containers, pots, garden supplies and of course plants and trees. Great and nice people. They have folks that speak Spanish.
www.franks-nursery.com/
Living Earth for garden soil, mulch, compost
livingearth.net/
Enchanted Garden or a wide selection of garden supplies like containers, pots, garden supplies and of course plants and trees. Friendly people.
www.myenchanted.com/
Southeast Region - Gardening topics related to TAMU
th-cam.com/channels/Wxt.html...
• Home Citrus Growing: G...
USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map
planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/
Gulf Coast Garden Variety TH-cam channel
th-cam.com/channels/6zt.html...
Southeast Region Gardening and Native Plant Societies in the Gulf Region
Native Plant Society TX npsot.org/wp/
Native Plant Society LA www.lnps.org/
Native Plant Society MS www.mississippinativeplantsoc...
Wild Flower Society AL www.alwildflowers.org/
Native Plant Society FL www.fnps.org/
Gulf Coast Garden Variety TH-cam channel is your source of How Tos, Tips about growing and maintaining your garden. Gardening lifestyle.
Principal cities in the Gulf Coast region are Houston, St. Petersburg, Tampa, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Galveston, Beaumont, Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, Mobile, and Pensacola.

[@kellymarie8127]

Maybe you mentioned it- but what type of grass is that? We are in Austin and have Bermuda. I am so afraid that if we sheet mulch some- but not all- the aggressive Bermuda will start to take over the sheet mulched areas. Advice?? Love the yard you’ve created! Nice work!

[@GCGV]

Hi Kelly, The grass is Bermuda. Installed by the builder. I would say we have about 95 percent success rate. There are areas where we have had to do double lasagna layering of sheet mulch, compost and hardwood mulch. We've accepted that this will be an on going process long term. We definitely are enjoying the results. Please subscribe and like if you haven't. Working on more related episodes. Tell us about your planned projects.