How to Kill Green Grass

Killing healthy, green grass is not on everyone's list, but if you have a yard project planned and you need to kill the grass to prevent it from growing up though your landscaping, you will find that the process is relatively easy and cheap to accomplish. You can kill the grass without chemicals. This means you can plant new grass in that area if you ever need to.

Things You'll Need

• Mower
• Garden hose
• Newspaper
• Mulch

Instructions

1. Mow the grass with your lawn mower as you normally would. However, set the mower blade to its lowest setting for maximum grass removal.

2. Saturate the grass with a garden hose.

3. Place sheets of overlapping newspaper over the area where you want to kill the grass, and then saturate the newspaper with water. Place a second layer of newspaper over the first layer, and then saturate that layer. Do this until you have seven to 10 layers of newspaper.

4. Place mulch over the newspaper. The mulch will hold in the moisture, block out the sun, and kill the grass within two months.

Tips & Warnings

• According to Doug Green of Beginner-gardening.com, it is a good idea to smother your grass the season before you plan to use the ground. For example, if you plan to grow a garden next spring, you should smother the grass this spring and leave the newspaper and mulch in place until you are ready to plant the garden. It can take several months or longer to completely kill the grass. Therefore, the longer you can leave the area covered, the higher rate of success you will have.

References

• Less Lawn; Smother Your Lawn; Evelyn J. Hadden; July 23, 2001
• Beginner Gardening; How Long to Kill Grass; Doug Green