Is this what you have, Amy? I looked it up earlier today to be sure I knew what cheatgrass was! I thought it was the stuff I used to have growing in bare spots in my KBG lawn, and now I know it wasand still is a little bit. When I first moved in here there were some "skimpy" spots in the grass in one corner of the backyard, and I didnÂt realize that cheatgrass was growing there the first yearÂand I wound up with a KAZILLION seeds in that area the next year. Mine always stays really short since it gets mowed with the grass, but it and the seed heads spread out laterally into the KBG and drop seeds everywhere! After seeing it was an annual the first year, the next year I spent a couple evenings in the yard after the stuff got big enough to easily recognize and pulled and/or cut it just below the crown to get out as much as I could. ItÂs quite easy to distinguish from the KBG. I did it in the evening when it was cooling, and it really was kind of pleasant to be out in the yard doing an easy job! I just kept moving my blanket a "little bit further," and eventually got the whole corner done. I repeated that a couple times the first summer, and have done it every now and then each summer sinceÂeven when I didnÂt feel like doing it because I was determined to not let it produce anymore seed, and the cheatgrass is now almost completely gone. And it really helps that IÂve kept the KBG in that corner watered well enough that itÂs grown in almost completely. Cheatgrass, like tumbleweed, doesnÂt really grow much when it has competition from other things. I never knew for sure what it was until I looked it up today, but when people around here started talking about cheatgrass, that sure sounded like the right thing!

Anyway, itÂs on the Colorado Noxious Weed C list, which means youÂre not required to eradicate itÂbut itÂs a BAD thing!

I sure would love to have a whole empty yard like you do to be planning perennials for!

Skybird

No, it's not cheatgrass. We have that too, and I did my best to keep it pulled. That and foxtails and other things that end up stuck in dogs paws... Come to think of it, I don't even know if this grass really had seedheads at all? I don't know much about grasses. I know blue grama b/c my neighbor planted it, I know cheatgrass b/c my husband knew it, and I know I never want bermudagrass anywhere near a garden ever again!

The "blank slate" has it's benefits, but sure can be overwhelming!!

Ok, the rest of the lawn looks more like dirt than KBG, so we can't compare its growth rate with the rest of the lawn. It's also a little tough to ID the grass from a distance photo, so this is more from the description and the growth pattern.

I don't know how tall K31 fescue gets if left unmowed, but the wide leaves and bunch grass makes me suspect that's what it is. I don't know if it's sold by itself, but it might be. I don't like it much, but part of that is because it doesn't look good mixed in with the rest of the lawn. I will say that when I left my sprinklers off for the last week of July and the month of August last year, a lot of the K31 lived while the KBG died. If you decided to plant it as a lawn, you'd probably end up needing to overseed regularly. It takes a lot to get it to go dormant, but it doesn't do a good job of coming out of dormancy, so if it does go dormant, it's likely to die.

I like the wheatgrass idea, but wheatgrass is likely to get taller than 6 inches. On the other hand, once you get it started, it will fill in bare spots.

I like western wheatgrass best, but I've found it harder to get established than streambank. I haven't tried thickspike, which may better than streambank in sandy soil.

Sheep fescue might be a good choice, too. It's low growing so it can be left unmowed, but it's a bunch grass, so it will tend to get clumpy over time if you don't overseed. However, it's even more drought tolerant than K31 fescue, so you'll lose less to drought. Also, if you mow it every once in a while, that will encourage tillering and it will fill in to some extent.

If you plant a mixture of wheatgrasses and sheep fescue, the stand will probably get dominated by the western wheatgrass over time if it is left unmowed. I was told by somebody at Biograss sod farm that if you mow the sheep fescue, it tillers aggressively enough that it can end up dominating the stand. The streambank (or thickspike) will hold its own, especially since it is likely to get a head start due to establishing more quickly.

I think that if I were you, I'd try to kill what's there first. I didn't kill everything first and it has taken a lot longer (and a lot more seed) to get the lawn to a point where it is mostly native grass. In my case, it was a little harder psychologically, because I had a pretty full lawn. Since yours is mostly dirt already, I think I'd bite the bullet.

Thanks bpgreen. I figured posting the pic would much more effectively convey "there is no lawn" :-) When I pull up my neighborhood on GoogleMaps, even without much zooming, I can easily spot my yard, and our neighbors don't have lush green lawns, they're more prairie-like. I don't even have that!!

I'm pretty sure I took the picture BEFORE I pulled out the nasty weeds growing out there. I pulled 5 or 6 really full loads in my garden cart this summer. My goal for the grass area that will be back there is one that once established, won't require much water. Occasional mowing is no problem. I just don't want to be a slave to the lawn.

There's not too much to kill out there, that's for sure. I can easily understand why you tried to make the change without the initial destruction of the lawn...that's also why we're not discussing my front lawn as well (right now at least). Really, with my back yard, it can only get better!

Thanks for the advice. I'm sure I'll have more questions soon...

"It's very sandy and gravelly out there. Do I need to bring in topsoil/amendments, or can I plant in the existing soil? "

I forgot to answer this question earlier. If you go with a native grass, you should be able to plant in what you've got. They'll do better with better soil, but they're adapted to pretty harsh conditions.

One thing that should be mentioned here is that if you plant natives, you want to minimize fertilizer use. Western wheatgrass is probably the only one that would do well with a "normal" fertilizer schedule. Some of the other choices would do poorly or even die with the amount of fertilizer a KBG lawn gets.

I looked at the little grasses today. There is actually some green in there mixed in with the brown. It does look like a bunch grass since it's like little mounds of grass. There are some seeds low to the ground around it, but I'm not sure if they are from that grass or another type out there. There's a much more fragile-seeming grass that lives out there that puts out seeds very low to the ground.