Homeowner shares before-and-after photos of their ‘anti-lawn’ progress: ‘It’s going to look amazing as time goes by’
One homeowner had a vision in mind when they purchased their new house — and they immediately tore out the lawn.
The r/NoLawns subreddit is full of transformations from water-hogging, time-consuming, expensive lawns to beautiful, functional, and easy anti-lawn landscaping. These alternatives use less water, so they’re cheaper to maintain and gentler on the environment.
That’s what this Redditor was going for with their unique mulch bed idea.
“Bought a fixer upper and replaced the lawn (really weeds) with a mostly xeric garden,” they said.
In a comment, they added, “Planting has been trial and error — the house faces south and is baked during the summer, so I’ve slowly honed in on some xeric plants that seem to do best in the summer heat. Just hit the nursery and got the weeping cedar and a few sedums on sale!”
By xeric, they meant that it was naturally dry and could thrive with little to no irrigation. The plants they chose were all drought-tolerant varieties. Most of the yard in their “after” photo is also covered with water-retaining wood chips — a far cry from the “before” image, which shows only a boring, unhealthy lawn.
“Learned a ton and am very excited to watch it fill in over time!” said the original poster.
Besides the young plants and the wide mulch bed waiting for them to spread out, the photo of their finished landscaping also includes two large, glazed planters that accent the warm color of the wood, and a custom raised wooden border running around the edge of the yard.
“You have done a great job! The cedar border looks really sharp and will keep the mulch from spilling onto the sidewalk,” said one commenter. “And you can’t go wrong with sedums. They are one of my favorites as they come in all kinds of colors, textures and sizes. Best of all, they thrive in the heat. A very good choice for south-facing. You will really enjoy watching your efforts grow!”
“It’s going to look amazing as time goes by!” said another user. “I really like your large vessels as accents, and I’m not usually a fan of weeping trees but that weeping cedar is really cool.”
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