One Michigan homeowner dramatically reduced their lawn and replaced it with a beautiful combination of their favorite plants — all in a year and a half.
The r/NoLawns subreddit often showcases full-yard transformations from featureless, high-maintenance turf grass to alternatives like this native garden or this little slice of prairie.
However, many members embrace the spirit of the anti-lawn movement even while changing only part of their yards — just like this Redditor did.
"My house came with zero landscaping and a great amount of lawn," they commented. "I got sick of that, and decided to start [to] make garden beds."
Their "before" image shows a garden bed with a gently curving shape surrounding the base of a birch tree. The rest of the green grass around the bed remained untouched.
"Mostly sheet mulched directly on top of lawn once I realized how hard it was to dig up lawn by hand," the Redditor said.
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The "after" picture, which they said was from 17 months later, shows a well-established garden with dozens of different plants and flowers, plus new trellises and an inviting bench. Far from taking up space, the garden made the whole yard look bigger and more maintained.
"I'd love to know more about the plants you have!" said one commenter. "I recognize some, but not all."
"I had a mixture of native plants and more traditional cottage plants that I couldn't say no to (peonies, roses, etc.)," the original poster replied. "I didn't have a destination in mind but mostly found plants I wanted and planted them in generally accepted garden design ways. … Taller plants in the middle, short plants in the front, variation in texture and color, try to plant to have something flowering at all seasons, planted a couple of shrubs that will grow to anchor the beds, etc."
Despite how fancy it looks, the Redditor said it was affordable. "I try to plant mostly seeds started by me or end of season nursery sales," they explained. "Most of the spending was on soil, compost, and mulch … Everything done by me and on a budget."
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Homeowners looking for similar results with fewer hours of work can call companies like Yardzen that have experience with native plants.
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