Blog
Turn Your Property into Better Habitat
![before and after](https://www.cincynature.org/media/blog/F61395B2-958F-48AA-A8A8-65E4664E83DF-125.jpg)
By Jeff Sperry, Director of Development and Marketing
I hate mowing the lawn. It’s noisy, messy, and smelly. Lawnmower motors are very loud; grass clippings get all over the place; and the fumes from the motor are noxious. My goal has been to eliminate—slowly but surely—quite a bit of lawn from my property. I’ve transformed lawn areas into garden areas with lots of native plants. It has been a very gradual process. Gardening is 90% patience, isn’t it?
![before and after](https://www.cincynature.org/media/blog/460651B4-4777-4828-B254-D000CBCECC87-126.jpg)
When I purchased my home in April 2012, I immediately came up with a roadmap in my head about parts of the lawn which could be turned into garden areas, and I started the process that fall. My lot is a typical, half-acre suburban lot. However, the property was about half lawn and half woods. Of course, the wooded area was overrun by bush honeysuckle when we moved in.
![before and after](https://www.cincynature.org/media/blog/A33CC1F7-B50D-46F8-8060-3AF2BFEF4F73-127.jpg)
My first project involved tackling a sunny lawn area which included a couple of scrubby burning bushes and a huge bush honeysuckle. After removing the unwanted shrubs, I used an easy method of reclaiming the space for a garden:
- Place a single layer of cardboard boxes on top of the lawn you want to remove (you could use 5 or 6 layers of newspaper instead.)
- Add a thin layer of compost (bags of this stuff are available at any big box store
- Add a 6 inch layer of hardwood mulch.
- Wait six months to plant anything
Although you could do this anytime of the year, fall is a great time, because the bare mulch isn’t a bother over the winter, and by spring you are ready to add plants—the fun part!
![before and after mulch bed](https://www.cincynature.org/media/blog/8DFCFC33-1D7F-4028-8979-92DE8F1063AD-128.jpg)
Over the next several years, I added a section at a time—some large, some small—transforming lawn areas into gardens, always making sure to incorporate native plants into the planting mix. One project simply turned a grass area going to the backyard (always worn down and trampled) into a mulch path. The area was already a path, albeit grass, but why continue to mow this difficult spot which really was a pathway to the backyard?
![woodland garden area](https://www.cincynature.org/media/blog/82789AF4-3748-44EA-B2DF-69BCE3708887-129(1).jpg)
For woodland garden areas, my approach differed slightly. The first order of business was to remove all the bush honeysuckle in a specific section. Over the last 8 years, I have eliminated close to one hundred mature bush honeysuckle plants, each 10 to 12 feet tall. My process for removing honeysuckle is also pretty easy:
- Cut the stems of the bush off close to the ground
- Wait for new foliage to grow back
- When the new growth is about 6 inches high, carefully spray it with Round-Up
- Wait for the foliage to grow back a second time, and spray it again with Round-Up
This is usually all it takes to kill the shrub. Sometimes a third spraying will need to happen. For less mature honeysuckle shrubs, you can usually dig out the whole thing with a spade—they have pretty shallow roots.
After removing all the unwanted honeysuckle and other invasives like garlic mustard and multiflora rose, I sometimes add a layer of upside down sod taken from my lawn removal sites or garden bed edging, and then add a thick layer of hardwood mulch. You don’t have to wait six months to plant these areas because you aren’t killing lawn. Start adding plants right away – native wildflowers, ferns, shrubs and more trees if desired. (And yes, maybe a few hostas!)
All of this better-quality habitat has attracted area wildlife and thousands of beneficial pollinators to my property. I’ve seen several box turtles, including tiny babies. This spring, a golden-colored fox has been running around the back of the property. We regularly see downy and pileated woodpeckers in the woods, and on occasion a Cooper’s hawk comes to scout out lunch options. It is wonderful to see how much the native wildlife make use of a tiny suburban lot! And I find that gardens really take less time to maintain than lawns.