Newspaper and mulch trick reappears in the garden

My baby sitter was way ahead of her time. She was an organic gardener when the term was not even invented yet. Her entire backyard was a vegetable garden loaded with healthy vegetables, some of which I had never eaten or heard of as a little boy.
One of her tricks she taught us was to save time and work by not digging up the lawn to expand the garden.


She liked laying down five to six layers of newspaper and planting threw it later on after the grass had died. She was already elderly and it was an easy method for her.
There are a multitude of other benefits to the newspaper and mulch method of planting. The grass breaks down and adds organic matter to the soil. The weeds stay out. The ground stays moist longer so watering time is cut down.
With the invasion on chinch bugs and grubs into my lawn, combined with our lack of rain, I decided to reduce my lawn even further this spring.

My bromeliads were in need of dividing, so they provided the low ground cover needed to fill in the bare spots in the landscape. By low, I mean two feet and under, some of my bromeliads are rather large. Sometimes I like to group the same bromeliads together for uniformity, while other times I like to vary them in a landscape bed.