Replacing lawn with beds?

[Maggiethecat]

I’m in the middle of extending a border by a foot. There are so many plants I’d like to try in my garden but lack space in the borders.

Has anyone replaced their lawn with beds? Was it hard for you to make that jump?

Watching with interest. My lawn is steadily shrinking and beds are more interesting.

Just about (well, couple of months!) to move into a new house with a bigger garden and planning to do this as I'm so much more interested in having lots of plants than a massive lawn. Why not? Can't see a single drawback as long as there's enough paths and a place to sit etc? No small children or pets to cater for!

Good for you!

Thanks @Maggiethecat !
Have you got pics of your garden/bed?
This could be an ongoing "I'm ripping up my lawn in favour of plants" thread! 😂
I've got a list of plants I want as long as my arm...(or longer...).

You could do it in stages. I started off with two 8ft x 4ft beds and I now have five of them. I also made part of my lawn into a perennial wildflower meadow so I now have a lot less lawn and more flowers!

I’m planning to do this once DS gets past the stage of wanting his football goal in the front garden, though I actually want to start by putting in a few trees, despite being worried about wind.

I’m interested in this too. The basic rectangle lawn with flowers around the edge is so boring. Just one shade of green and not appealing to bees and butterflies! And then boggy and brown in the winter. I keep thinking about miniature backgarden versions of stately home gardens with lots of differently shaped flower beds packed with colour and variety and winding paths.

Just a bog standard rectangle with borders down both sides - really boring!

My list is growing too 😂

Boring to start with but it'll change! Progress pics. I don't even know when I'll be in my new house but I'm champing at the bit.
First on my list is probably going to be a fig tree. I had one in my last (tiny) garden that I'd moved from my previous (small) garden. It was my pride and joy!

We have a tiny north facing front garden with a lumpy bit of lawn which I often look at and think it would be far better with shrubs and flowers. Next door have a magnolia at the front of theirs which is tempting but I worry about pipes under the garden with trees.

I did this last year. Lawn was a complete mess after 15 years of kids playing footie on it. Put in raised beds and loads of pots/planters. Filled them with a variety of evergreen plants and grasses (couldn't tell you what they all are, they just looked nice in the garden centres). I do know i put in hebes, hydrangea (£4.99 from the range) and a winter jasmine (£2.50 from morrisons) which ive trained up a trellis. Its easier to look after with just a bit of weeding and everything is starting to grow buds so in a couple of months it will be full of flowers again. It was lovely last summer all in flower and loads of colour.

I don't have any lawn! My patio has loads of planters on it full of spring and summer flowering bulbs and where the lawn and tiny borders were is now evergreen shrubs (including rhododendron, azaleas and pieris), heathers, ferns, buddleia, photinia and a couple of trees which have been in since the house was built. I have put down huge amounts of bark to help improve the soil over time and to keep the weeds down. The soil is heavy clay (hard work to dig) and I found that bulbs tend to rot which is why they are in planters, although the crocosmia and bluebells seem to cope! I also have a huge cyclamen growing in a sheltered but sunny patch of clay by the patio! Theres a jasmine growning up and over my shed which smells fab all summer. (There are fowers in the garden from January when the first heathers start to December when the anemones finally stop.)

I don't miss the lawn which was nearly always waterlogged and the birds love throwing the bark around! There are a lot more birds, bees, butterflies and ladybirds since I became lawn free and yesterday got a shock when a large toad popped out from one of the ferns....

My lawn is just too much upkeep and is dying a death. I was thinking of wild flower seeds, I guess laying some stones and planting shrubs is a good idea… one has to be able to access, to prune. Does anyone have any inspo pics? It’s planting season!

We have embarked on this! We have a rectangle of (dreadful, weedy, mossy, boggy) lawn. So far we have created a large semi circular bed which is probably about a third of the length of the lawn, taking in a big tree in the border. Because it’s under the tree, we are treating that bed as a woodland garden, and planting it up with shade loving things. Next step is a big circle on the opposite side, where there are already a few well established shrubs. That will get lots of sun, so a totally different list of plants to go in there. I won’t mind if we end up with a few small bits and pieces of lawn, then some of it will be given over to wildflowers. I’m pleased to find other people doing the same thing!

I have spent the day digging up lawn in favour of beds 😊

It’s a new build and we had everything turfed when we moved in two years ago, and planted some trees.

I put a quarter round bed and two hedges in last summer. Have spent the last few weekends planting bare root shrubs (literally just digging a hole and planting them rather than preparing a bed, so they could start to establish) and I am now at the stage of digging out some beds.

Im putting a big circular bed in the centre, and a wide curved bed on an edge. I’m experimenting with making one traditionally dug bed, and the other a no dig bed (which so far is much easier).

It feels such a big move for me I’m thinking I might have to get professional help with the design and at the minimum any hard landscaping that might be needed. Otherwise it could become one of those stop and start projects!

@JustPleachy - where did you buy your bare roots? I’m eyeing a few from Farmer Gracy

I'd love to be we still have young dc who use the grass a lot. I'd like to have a lawn but as a path going between plants, I really like grass that flows as an S shape between beds. It's on the list of things to do in a couple of years when the dc stop playing in the garden!

I did this when I moved to my current house a few years ago and am really happy with the results. Firstly I hate mowing grass and find it so tedious, and secondly I just find a rectangular lawn with beds around the edges to be mundane.

I wanted to grow my own vegetables so I dug up the lawn in the back garden and put in raised beds but still included a seating area for relaxation. I'm very lucky to have a spectacular sea view from the front garden so I got rid of the lawn there too and came up with my own design of a meandering path between two flower beds full of cottage garden plants. I love it.

Roses, shrubs and fruit trees from Tesco (cheap but good) and a big box of perennials from an online place (but I have been racking my brains to try to remember where).

I did that last autumn on one side of my garden and last month on the other. I had a border that was just too narrow to achieve any effect - borders work best when plants are either mingling in layers, or planted en masse, not just a row of sad, single specimens. I extended it by 1m so it’s now 1.5m wide, planted the trees and shrubs I wanted there, and amended the soil so it’s ready for planting with perennials and other plants (cannas, colocasias) this spring. I watched videos on YouTube, bought a cheap half moon hedger, and did it myself.

This spring I tackled the other side. It was wider to start with, so I added approximately 50cm to get rid of the patch of bare soil in front of it, where grass wouldn’t grow. Soil amended, mulched, it’s all ready for planting in a few weeks.

It’s really not that hard, unless your garden is substantial. If I can do it, so can you ☺️ Go for it!

I am reducing the size of one of our lawns this year. We have 3 (small to medium) rectangular lawns with straight boring borders, in a row side by side. I am tackling one of the end lawns where the garden steps in by about 9 foot at the bottom of it and the borders on each side are raised.

I have decided to square off the lawn by adding raised beds at top and bottom with openings in the centre, this lines up perfectly with where the fence steps in at the bottom. Then I am going to cut the remaining square lawn into a circle with an edger and have level beds in front of the raised beds which will be triangular with a concave front.

Once the new beds where the fence steps in are planted up, I think it will conceal that we have a chunk cut off our garden as it looks a bit odd as it is. I intend to plant the borders in a tropical style and have a path/steps leading down to the bottom of the garden beyond the lower opening. I'll keep the existing raised border along the side of the new path/existing fence but re-plant it to hide the fence. I might need to add an arch or similar structure at the lower opening to complete the illusion.

I've thought about adding a circular bed in the centre but think I'll leave that for now, its something I could always add at a later date. The lawn isn't in the best condition but the problem areas will be largely removed, then I can try and improve the remaining grass.

Next year I am hoping to do something interesting but less elaborate with the lawn at the opposite end which is in a poor condition, even if its just a case of making it a more organic shape with bigger beds. I will probably need to leave the centre lawn (which is half decent) as is for the time being but might widen the borders a bit.

I was hoping to make a start this weekend but the weather has other ideas!

Sadly I don’t have a garden, just a backyard and an allotment. But getting rid of or reducing lawns is very much a gardening trend at the moment. A lot of the gardening magazines have articles on it. For example, Gardens Illustrated February issue had an item on this. Worth having a browse in the newsagents?

Have a look at Friday's Gardener's World - there was an Edinburgh garden where the owner lifted the lawn and created a cottage garden with paths. Looked lovely. I'm planning to do the same

The voice of experience here…. It will be a lot to maintain after the first three/four years unless you cut back each year, depending on the needs of individual plants. And consider that whilst you might have time now, your circumstances might change making it difficult to keep on top of it all.
i reckon good gardens are a perennial work in progress. Perhaps not try to hard but learn as you go.
At 66 and with arthritis and with far too big a garden I struggle on!