There's a lot of discussion on this type of yard prep over on the Composting forum. Lots of people use the "lasagna" bed method (as opposed to digging up/rototilling) for creating new garden spaces, etc. Involves laying down cardboard or layers of newspaper, then piling on mulch, compost, dirt, yard trimmings and garden debris which over the course of a season - maybe even a Michigan winter - would break down, killing off what grass and weeds are underneath, giving you a usable planting area.

I've never tried it myself, but many people over on Composting have had great success. And it involves using readily available materials as opposed to being a budget buster.

You don't even have to get as fancy as full "lasagna". If your soil is good and you just want to kill off grass, just lay thick layers of newspapers or autumn leaves or cardboard over the grass and weight it with wood chips. Works great. You plant next spring, scraping back the chips to dig and add more mulch as needed.

Rent a sodcutter to remove all grass and weeds in one day. It will also lower the level of your soil. Hauling all the sod away is a chore, but a friend of mine posted on freecycle, and someone who wanted it hauled it all away for her.

I will investigate the smothering thing further, thank you! We have a small back yard, but that is still a lot of newspapers and wood chips! And the squirrels would be very confused about what happened to all their nuts I see them burying out there..... LOL!

I'm not actually sure how good the soil is under there - I know down deeper it's clay, in the front I found pretty good topsoil under the lawn, but if we remove too much with the grass, we'll have to add more. The owner of a local garden center with very impressive, healthy plants swears by aged pine bark added to existing soil vs. using new topsoil & compost. Any thoughts on that stuff?

A sod-cutter - is that like a rototiller? That might be our best option, and truthfully I'm a little burned out on landscaping from this summer, so waiting till next year sounds more attractive. My husband said he dug up a large patch for a vegetable garden once with a rototiller and thinks that might be the way to go, but that some of the lawn did come back in spots. I guess it depends on how thorough you are.

The freecyling sounds great... except that I don't think anybody would want our sod. It's mostly crabgrass, dandelions and various other invasive weeds. I don't even know where to take it, actually. You can't put it for city yard compost pick up if you don't get most of the dirt off.

You don't want to rototill sod into a new planting bed - you'll be fighting grass weeds forever. A sodcutter is a mower-like machine with a horizontal blade that slices through the roots of the turf grass. It can be set at various heights, but make sure the blade is set to sever right at the base of the roots. Most turf grasses are rhizomatous and can quite easily resprout from just the bare root system. The lasagne method works great but doesn't afford immediate results - if you want to create a planting bed quickly, then IME a sodcutter is the way to go.

If the sod is placed upside down - roots exposed to the air - it will decompose in time and can be a good start to a compost pile. No need to cart it away at all, if you have the space to accomodate it.

As to amending the soil, any wood product (like the bark your nurseryperson advocates) incorporated into the soil will tie up nitrogen until it undegoes decompostion and breakdown by soil organisms. This is not a problem if you augement with a high nitrogen fertilizer. But compost is a pretty great all-round nutrient source and soil conditioner and will encourage high populations of necessary soil organisms. Both are good soil amendments, but I'd take compost over bark any day. IMO, bark is better as a mulch or topdressing rather than a soil additive or amendment.

Don't have a suggestion for height reduction - others have already commented, but I can speak up for using newspapers and cardboard to kill grass. Works like a charm. 8 layers of newspaper, wet thoroughly and pile some compost and a layer of chips on top - you will kill all the grass and have a ready to plant bed by spring. The newspaper and cardboard will decompose by spring. I've used it for a big lasagna bed of total clay, used it around a huge weedy sweep of cotoneaster shrubs - laid down newspaper and mulch and didn't pull a weed all summer this year. Currently doing a spot on a rocky, clay patch of soil that I want to change the shape of a bed so its easier to mow around. I dumped all my kitchen scraps, coffee, etc for a few weeks, tore up a cardboard box an appliance came in, and started piling garden clean-up debris on top of that. Will finish now with mulch to hold it in place for the winter. It will be a pile of compost in the spring. There were all kinds of weeds under there to begin with and they are already dead. Now just wait for the organics to decompose. If you use garden debris and kitchen scraps that will provide more than enough nitrogen to help further break down the bark mulch.

One of the advantages of the lasagna method is that the grass and the roots decompose into the soil--built in organic matter, which is what you're trying to achieve when you add other organic matter. Removing turf is a lot of work and counterproductive.

Based on my experiences, I'd have to weigh in with the "lasagne", or "sheet composting" method. When we renovated our back yard we did as we were told and rototilled in gypsum, peat moss, fertilizer, then rolled it ... A lot of work and years later it's still lumpy.

Late one winter I expanded a bed to accommodate some shade plant divisions. Newspaper + bits from the paper shredder + compost + leaf mulch + water + a few months = soil so soft the hand trowel went through with ease.

FYI, our soil is very sandy, but it's a fine, silty-like sand that clumps like clay and hardens up like concrete, so lots of organic matter is particularly beneficial here.

great suggestions, thank you! So it sounds like a lasagna back yard over the winter might be our best bet, since we don't plan to start work till next spring. (It definitely would force us not to put it off another year...). I'm not sure if the city has any restrictions on stuff like that, I know you can get ticketed for letting your grass grow too long without cutting it, but being a back yard and the fact that we ARE doing it as improvement might make a difference. It's a fairly urban area, and while we do compost, it's a small amount in a bin behind the garage, and I'm not sure about composting fresh scraps all over the back yard - I have never seen rats around here, but a friend less than a mile away had them under her deck, and I don't want to encourage a problem, here.

Actually, I'm trying to figure out what materials besides newspaper we can get cheaply or free - I'm not a fan of wood chips as mulch, since they don't break down very well. I've used both hardwood and cedar mulch as an overlay, but even that I'm afraid to turn it into the soil too much because there are still big chunkc and I've heard that sucks the nitrogen out. I think you can get compost from the city, but not sure what will be available in Fall. I won't have much in the way of garden clean-up debris, it's a small lot, and my planting areas are fairly small. Plus a lot of that stuff with the tall grasses, lavendar, etc. I leave in place for winter interest and prune back in the spring (unless I'm doing that wrong).

So, the idea is - in the Spring there shouldn't be anything left to "peel back" and have to get rid of, it's all decomposed and can get turned in to the soil? And the grass and weeds underneath - they will be dead and we just turn it all in, or pull it out? Maybe that's where the rototiller comes in in the spring?

I advise making a plan first, and then consider implementing it in stages.

It is very tempting to create a big expanse of bed (lasagna or other) and only then start thinking about what to put in it, but that's often trouble. You either have an overwhelming amount of stuff to do, or you don't make a plan, and all these beds, mulched or not, will grow weeds that you can't mow but will have to pull by hand.

If you make a plan--even if a bit rough or general--for paths, beds, shrubs here, groundcover there--then you can break it into zones, or areas, and plan to lasagna this area and plant in early spring, then lasagna that area and plant in fall--and so on.

The size and shape in part is driven by what you want to plant there and how you want it to look, as much or more than vice-versa. Also depth, and whether you only need to smother the grass partway and can still dig a big hole in the still-hard dirt underneath your lasaga layer (because it takes a while for improvement of soil below the layers you make), or whether you have evil grass that must be dead-dead-dead before you disturb the soil and roots.

Of course you can do the whole thing at once, especially if the area you plan to cultivate is small, but you still need a plan, and it still sounds like you're currently in bed creation mode and maybe haven't yet decided what goes there.

As I understand it, there are a number of ways to achieve your goal. Some cost more. Some require more backbreaking work. Some take more time.

Most of the pro-gardeners and old-hands will tell you that working on beds is best done in the fall for spring planting. Farmers do it that way. Some of them are also beginning to adopt "no till" practices because tilling the ground disturbs healthy soil structure and creates erosion problems.

Again, as I understand it, whichever approach you choose for de-sodding and prepping your ground, that should be done in the fall. A soil test through your county extension or the lab they suggest can help you understand what amendments in what amounts might be needed. The county extension can help you interpret the results. If you're dealing with clay, then you may want to till amendments plus good quality coarse compost and/or pine mulch into the top layer, but not too deeply.

It will be possible to plant in the spring. Believe it or not, earthworms and other critters wanting to get at the organics you will have introduced will help to further create healthy soil structure and break up clay. The weather over the winter also helps, settling the soil. You will be able to plant in the spring, and things will grow, but it can take several years for the soil to reach its potential.

I found an article, The Way With Clay, that talks about your questions at the Renegade Gardener. My ineptitude at using the form fields cause this post to be rejected about a dozen times. It said, "Message Rejected" because I'd entered an erroneous web address. I say, "Poo!" Here's the address I use to find the article. If someone else can turn it into an active link, I'd appreciate itÂ

www.renegadegardener.com/content/143wayclay.htm

wow, thanks for all the great suggestions, you guys sound like such experts. It's typical for me to jump into a project without a well thought out plan and then realize I've gotten in over my head. That's the reason it took me 3 years to finish the modestly sized front bed.

I was afraid we'd have to deal with the back yard this fall in terms of preparation. That does make the most sense. I think we may have a problem with weeds next spring, though, if we don't lay down the newspaper & stuff over it. I mean -if we get all the sod up and ammendments rototilled in - won't everything that blows by want to take root?

I've already gone way over budget for the year, but this part might be a job for the pros. I found decent dirt underneath the sod I dug up in the front, so I"m hoping to find similar in the back. The clay was maybe another 4-6 inches below that. So far what I've planted in front has done pretty well, and I never tested the soil, it was just kind of trial and error.

It's a myth that decomposing wood chips take nitrogen from the soil. They decompose much too slowly to have any effect on the soil, and they add organic material as they rot. I've been using wood chips for 40 years in many different gardens in several states. It's the best, except perhaps if you're growing xeric plants in the west.

Do be sure you have a clear plan for the spring planting however, if you're mulching out the grass in your entire back yard. You might want to start slowly with one bed and add others as you get a clearer picture of what you want to do. Don't just start sticking in plants. You won't like what you end up with.

Sorry, but that is NOT a myth. Wood products (bark, wood chips, sawdust) incorporated into the soil do tie up nitrogen. It's called nitrogen immobility. The types of soil organisms required to break down and decompose wood products are rather specialized and there are a limited variety that are able to break down the indigestible (to other organisms) cellulose and lingens that wood is composed of. Like all organisms, they require nutrients of their own to survive, including nitrogen. Because wood products have a relatively high C:N ratio - lots of carbon; very little nitrogen - the nitrogen these organisms require must be supplied from some source and that source is the availability of nitrogen in the surrounding soil. When nitrogen availability is limited due to insufficient quantities of organic matter, soil microbes are able to outcompete plants for access. The microbes grow fat and happy but the plants suffer.

Using wood products as a mulch on the soil surface has minimal impact on nitrogen availablility - it is when the material is incorporated into the soil as an amendment that the incidence of nitrogen depeletion arises. It is less of a concern with larger, woody plants like trees and shrubs that have a wide spreading root system but it can have a noticeable effect on smaller perennial plants or seasonal crops. And the effect is easily mitigated by adding an organic material like compost with a low C:N ratio or supplementing with a high nitrogen amendment like alfalfa or soy meal.

Here is a link that might be useful: it's no myth

Wellspring's link - see if this works, wellspring.

Here is a link that might be useful: wellspring's link - renegade gardener clay soil