Pictures of the Turf being… Murdered

Here are the photographic steps of the black plastic method I used to kill my turf:

Step 1) Mow the turf short. Grass grows from its tips so if it's short, it—and its roots—will die faster. Remember this turf murder is about effectively killing the turf’s roots so they won’t grow back, which will leave plenty of room for the gorgeous, drought tolerant plants that will be planted. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Step 2) Buy the biggest, thickest sheet of black plastic available. At The Home Depot I found one that was 10 feet x 25 feet and bought two rolls of it. The color is important because black will A) Prevent any sunlight from getting to the roots while simultaneously B) Warming in the sun’s heat, which will slowly burn the roots to death. Hey, murder is never pretty. 

Step 3) Lay the black plastic on the grass and pin it down with heavy things like bricks, wood or your heart, because having the entire front yard covered in plastic is a happiness killer to any homeowner.

And now the very hardest step:

Step 4) Wait. For six weeks.

ARRGH!

Sharing Grass

I’ve never done things the way others do.

I didn’t get a college degree; I got two.

I didn’t date a bunch of losers; I married one great guy.

I didn’t want green grass; but had the lushest, greenest yard in all of Southern California.

Ahh! Life's cruel ironies.

I’d already made the big decision to delete the lawn plus I’d been approved to rip it out but when it came to the logistics of actually removing the emerald green sod I… just… couldn’t… do… it.

The reason? I felt terrible tossing out a living plant—albeit one whose weekly water needs sucked the Mississippi River bone-dry and required a mowing, weeding and fertilizing regimen that was more complicated and time-consuming than a bride preparing for her big destination-wedding day. Nope, when guilt struck me, it hit hard wiping out all the painful months I had suffered maintaining the %#*$ grass and replacing rational thought with sentiments like: 

I can't rip out the turf.  It's not fair to the turf.  The turf was here first.

I was like the woman who was sick and uncomfortable throughout her entire pregnancy, but the moment her baby was born--Whoosh!--she forgot about the previous nine months of agony and got pregnant... again.

My guilt about removing the turf taught me a vital lesson about myself, I had a mothering instinct... for plants.

Clearly, I’ve never done things the way other people do.

Yes I was a plant lover and as horticulturalists know the greatest defining characteristic of plant lovers was, we never threw out plants. No, sir-ee, we shared them! 

In our neighborhood finding someone who needed green grass was as easy as giving away candy bars on Halloween. I looked at my neighbor's brown lawn and sashayed over to Harold and Norma’s house where I found Norman hoisting his American flag. Of course, they'd take my grass because nothing was more American than green grass! Except maybe baseball, oh, and football. Football was American and so was apple pie, hamburgers—and despite the name—“French Fries”, Girl Scout Cookies, yellow ribbons, oak trees, jazz, disco, grunge, crab cakes, the Constitution, throwing horseshoes, s’mores, fire pits, fireworks—okay, okay! So clearly plenty of things were American and food related. But lush green grass was on that "very American" list, too.

“Harold, do you want our grass?”

“Sure I’ll take it,” he said looking at our yard with envy.

“Great!—”

“If you pick it up and plant it over here.”

Now I was a plant lover but not a fool. Doubling my work by ripping out my lawn and fixing up his was not in my grand plan of sharing grass.

"If you want it," I said. You can come get it. Deal?"

Harold laughed and entered his man-cave garage.

I telescoped the area and spotted another neighbor working in his garden.

"Hi Jerry," I said bounding over to him.  Jerry was a San Francisco sports fan, a rose fan and a true plant lover. He had dozens of beautiful roses in his front yard. Of course Jerry would want my grass!

“I hear you’re making some changes to your yard,” Jerry said snipping off a stalk from a rosebush.

“We’re getting rid of the turf.”

"But your grass is real nice," he said tossing a look to our yard.

“Do you want it?"

He shook his head. "But if you're getting rid of any roses, I’ll take those."

Correction: Jerry wasn't a plant lover but a rose hog. 

Maybe I could call a local library.  Donate the grass to them.  Or a—wait a minute.  What was I doing? If I wanted to get rid of the grass in my yard to improve my quality of life and decrease water bills it didn't make sense to pass the grass along to someone else because that meant the total number of yards with grass in L.A. would remain the same.

If I wanted to enact change, I didn't need to share grass but my vision of a water wise garden and push my yard from turfed to turf-free.  Without my neighbors or a charity taking my grass the only option I had was to kill my grass... myself. 

Nope, I’ve never done things the way others do.

Next: Murdering... the Turf

The Inspector

"Do you live here or there?" the woman in the polar fleece jacket said crossing the street and approaching our yard.

"Who wants to know?" I said not disguising the suspicion in my voice.

"It's just you were moving the garbage bins around at that house," she said jutting her chin toward the house that Mr. Wonderful and I shared. "And now you're picking up palm tree debris from this yard," she said indicating the patch in front of Harold and Norma's house.  "So where do you live?"

"Who are you?"

"I don't mean to make you upset--"

"Then tell me who you are!" I said rushing her like an NFL defensive tackle.  

"The Inspector for your Turf Removal!"

Gee, why didn't she just say so?  

A funny thing happened once I became a homeowner, I became suspicious.  Suspicious of everyone and everything. Who's walking up my driveway? Whose car is parked in front of my house? Whose exhaling their dirty halitosis breath in my neighborhood air space? It was as if I were a one-woman Neighborhood Watch committed to eradicating the unknown for the known and passing out breath mints to strangers who needed them.

Another funny thing occurred with home ownership, this one related to possession. I referred to everything as mine: my kitchen, my house, my yard and Mr. Wonderful's weeds. Okay, the good things were mine the less good things were his. It reminded me how it had been for my wedding. As I recall Mr. Wonderful was present on that fateful day playing a major part in the "I do" department, but when all was said and done, it was my beautiful wedding, my fun reception and his expensive open bar bill.  

So when this smiling female inspector started asking me questions without identifying herself, my suspicious shackles were raised as high as Mount Shasta.

"I had to come approve your application for the turf removal," she said visibly unsettled by my nearly-played defensive tackle. "You are removing your turf, right?" 

"Yes I am!" I said and just like that, my attitude toward her did a complete 180 degree turn.  I went from untrusting to "you're my BFF!" so fast I got whiplash.  I can only imagine what it did to her.

Standing beside her I watched as she expertly examined our emerald green lawn, as she pleasantly chatted about the benefits of planting California Natives and as she graciously gave me a drip kit to irrigate our future turf-less garden. In short, she was a delight!  

"Come back any time!" I said waving to her. She smiled and said she would when my bland green yard was transformed into a colorful floral garden.  I can't wait!

Next Step: Removing the Turf!

Deleting the Lawn

“Your lawn is so lush,” our nosy neighbor said adjusting the baseball cap on his bald head.

“Thanks, Harold,” I said sweeping the driveway.

“It’s like a putting green.”

“Thanks—”

“You must be proud of it.”

I shrugged.  “We’re ripping it out.”

“What?!”

Before Harold collapsed from shock, I grabbed his 86 year-old elbow and steered him into his lawn chair.  He shooed me away cursing “these days” and “idiot young people.”

I think he meant us.   

As first time homeowners, Mr. Wonderful and I were learning about our suburban neighbors’ fascination with The Lawn.  In a nutshell: 1) Grass ruled and 2) The greener, the better, which was great if you lived in Scotland where it rained 490 days a year.  But we lived in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley best known for its hot, dry, desert-like conditions where people had to morph into snakes to survive.  This climate explained why Hollywood thrived here and nowhere else.  It also explained why green grass was hard to grow and even harder to maintain. 

In retrospect maybe it was this difficulty that made grass so desirable because our neighborhood was full of verdant front lawns fed by sprinkler systems that were more complex than NASA’s Mars Rover Program and dispensed more water on a daily basis than Hoover Dam, most of which flooded the adjacent streets and sidewalks.  If concrete grew with H2O, our street would be as tall as Universal Studios’ Black Tower skyscraper.  Now wouldn’t that be awkward: driving up to the 30^th floor and taking the elevator down to the entrance—

But I digress.

Mr. Wonderful and I could do a lot of things, one of which was doing without the lawn, and its requisite watering, mowing, fertilizing and bragging rights.  With all the work we had to do on the house’s inside, we didn’t need any more work on the outside.  After a few inquiries with the County I learned they were actively encouraging homeowners to rethink the lawn. 

“What do you mean?” Norma said as she handed a glass of water to Harold sprawled prone in his lawn chair.

I shrugged, “They want us to remove our grass.”

“What?!”

As Norma fell over I slid her 85 year-old frame into a lawn chair next to her spouse.  In unison they clutched their hearts.  I was ready to dial 911, ready to follow their ambulance to Burbank Hospital where they’d be treated for dual quadruple heart attacks.  I was ready to explain to their doctor: “All I said was we were removing every blade of grass from our lawn when—boom!—their hearts stopped—” 

Thump!

“Doc?  You’re on the floor clutching your chest.  I’ll call 911!”

Luckily none of this happened because Harold and Norma were vigilant about following a strict vegetarian diet meaning that, with my stress and arteries, I was imminently closer to a suffering a heart attack than either of those octogenarians. 

But I digress.

“Remove your lawn?!” Harold said fanning himself with the newspaper. 

“That’s madness!” Norma said fanning herself with the business section.

“We want low maintenance,” I said.  “So we’re replacing the grass with—”

“Concrete?!” Norma gasped.

“Over my dead body!” Harold said struggling to his feet.

I ordered them to relax or I would give them a heart attack with a free knuckle sandwich.  I proceeded to explain how Mr. Wonderful and I were planning to remove our thirsty green turf and replace it with California native plants indigenous to Los Angeles like: Manzanita, Toyon, Ceoanthus, California Poppies and Cacti.  These natives had spent thousands of years adapting to the unique climate of Southern California, so they were prepared to thrive in our blistering, dry summers right along with Hollywood’s cruelest snakes.

“Sounds nice,” Norma said.

“Thanks—” I smiled.

“It’s… different,” her spouse said.

“...Thanks?”

“These days," Harold said "you never know what idiot young people will do.”

This time I knew he was talking about us.  But I didn’t care.  I did not digress from my water-wise plan for a grass-free yard.  Come summer I’d have a beautiful garden and he’d be watering the street.

Ha!

Next Step: The Inspection

P.S. If you’re interested in deleting your Southern California lawn, click here for more information!