Kick my grass. (But please be gentle.)

Can't think of a thing, unless you have access to black walnut husks, but that's getting almost as far into chemical warfare as roundup.

Mulch?

I've been fighting the grass here - not there battle for years.

I've got healthy grass trying to join in on the little woodlot I'm trying to establish in the front yard (see pix in how's your garden look today), and struggle to maintain the grass the contractor put in the back yard as a gift to me.

I got control of one area by digging everything up, flipping it over and covering it with landscape fabric anchored with bricks and mulch. The patio area at the back of the little back yard - there is landscape fabric under the patio slabs when I lift 'em up - so someone else came to the same conclusion.

A big sheet of plain old black plastic will work wonders. Leave it down there for a few nice hot days and it'll kill off pretty much everything.

But.. If you don't find that to be practical - boiling water (or veggie oil!) will kill it off for several weeks.

I inherited a mess of a patio here and I guess I'm really more re-working the area than installing anything too new.

I was trying to avoid the black plastic because I know Mo would never allow it to stay put for long.

I have thought about landscape fabric underneath the whole mess but that would mean digging it all up and out and then digging it all back in.

Last fall when I dug paths I mixed a lot of pine needles into the dirt (clay, really) to help break it up and smooth it out, then I covered the whole area with more pine needles. The grass really hasn't come up much on the paths so I thought I would take a similar tack on the patio area.

Still, I was hoping there might be some magic ingredient that I could add that would prevent the grass altogether.

Boiling water is good but it would take a hundred gallons and veggie oil would work but sounds like it might get expensive if it only works for a few weeks.

What about something like salt?

Would that work?

Thank you all for your help!

Heated black plastic apparently also causes death of good organisms, if you care about that.

Landscape fabric - I have that under my crushed rock that surrounds my four raised beds. Weeds do grow eventually in the rock, as birds and wind bring seeds, but are easy to pull as the roots don't usually go down through the fabric.

Boiling water, hmmmm. I recently noticed that you can buy steamers for housecleaning. I'd probably steam my foot, but I wonder if it would work on grass.

Finally, I am not as totally opposed to judicious use of roundup as others, though plain old weeding is my general choice.

Ha! Maybe I could have the carpet steam cleaner guys count my patio as a room!

I'm not completely opposed to chemicals either, osso, but there are far too many mammals in my backyard. If it were my front yard I'd probably take the easy way out.

boomerang, Roundup won't hurt your backyard mamals if you use it with care. I'm not a big fan of chemical either, but the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, breaks down very quickly when it hits the soil. Here's a little light reading for you.
http://www.ipmofalaska.com/files/Glyphosate.html

Oh, salt would work, if you want permanant. That is another chemical.

Newspaper, at least 4 layers thick. Spread something on top of it to hide it or spread a few inches of topsoil over it. In a few weeks you can dig through the newspapers and plant in the soil or put anything else you want in there.

We put in a new garden three years ago. I put a border around the area, covered the grass with newspaper and filled it in with dirt. It's never had a problem with weeds and the plants are doing fine.

We use an acetic acid spray in areas we dont want to use Roundup.
Roundup is great but for some reason people just dont wanna trust it. Its a chemical mix of a methyl amino compound thats in our DNA (Glycine) and a methyl phosphorus. It breaks down within 60 days but loses its properties within 48 hours. Its very safe. I know theres a web site that preaches fear and loathing of Roundup . Most of those people dont raise plants for a living.

Theres another trick, use a gas flame gun

Hmmm.

Okay. Maybe Roundup is a good choice. (Light reading. Ha!) I think I might even have some out in the shed.

So.

Should I just spray the area I don't want anything growing and then work in my pine needles?

Or should I wait until things start growing and then spray them?

J_B, in this case, I'm trying to get nothing to grow!

When I built my raised beds I did "lasagna composting" with newspapers and cardboard covered with all the fall leaves then covered with soil. I built over a really grassy area and I have had virtually nothing come up! Worked like a charm.

I really don't want to dig all this dirt out and put anything underneath. I just want to chunk it up, chop it up, smooth it out and cover it up with some kind of path material.

If it's a larger area you can do wide area coverage with Round-Up by painting it on. I was told to use a paint roller, roll over the whole area and then throw the roller away. It's still out there on the to do list so I haven't actually done it, but it was the suggestion of the landscape designer we worked with.

ok, didn't read the whole thread fully, but it seems to me that edging your patio with a product that slices down at least 4 inches and stays above ground about an inch (I am so not explaining this well) could do the trick. Yes grass spreads by seed, but not as much as it does by lateral rooting.

something like that which is demonstrated here:





How to

I've used that stuff. In fact I've got some more in the car. It's, errr, not dreadful.

The edging? It's not good to look at, but it does it's job.

I reread Boomer's posts and am a little unsure about what she's doing, exactly. The edging is good around the patio to keep grass from growing into the area.

I have used that stuff! I dug a little boarder seperating the patio from the lawn and (re)planted it with lavender.

It has not kept the grass at bay.

I'm going to put in a very short stone boarder and then fill in the interior with some kind of path stuff. I'm hoping the little wall will help.

I've got some between the flower beds and the grass in the back.
Right now there is better grass IN the flower beds than in the grass path.
Not sure how that went wrong.