Newbie question

[Vincent Romano]

Hi, I'm wanting to plant some shrubs for the first time. My quetion is do I need to remove all the grass before planting. This will be a really big area, and will be covered with that black paper under mulch? It is almost a hillside. Thanks Nick

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

if you will be covering the turf with mulch, then it will die anyways, I would just mow real low.

Landscape fabric is a scam in most instances. It does not help with weed control, and keeps the fine roots out of the mulch, and worms and such from moving between the mulch and soil.

I would maybe use kraft paper, or newsprint, then a layer of compost then the dry chip mulch.

just putting chip over the turf will take up most of the Nitrates in the soil while decomposing. Using an initial layer of decompsed organics (Compost) will protect the shrubs root system from this.

 

[Jay Banks]

Mow close and then apply round-up wait 2 weeks and reapply the round-up on any spots the you missed the first time.

Dig your holes and plant the shrubs, mulch, water.

 

[jimmyq]

another method is to dig out the turf, prepare your digging hole and lay the turf in upside down (grass facing down) about halfway down in the hole with fill above, it will die and compost itself naturally and you dont need to add the chemical controls. This works well in the pacific northwest, it may not be best in your local depending on rainfall etc.

 

[geofore]

shrubs

This is a question better answered by the guys on www.************ not that they will know more or have a better answer but they deal with this every day. I think it's time to go cut a tree.