hugelkultur....lawn?

Hi everyone--

I have been lurking around Permies for...gosh...a long time, but have never posted. I was just digging around the hugelkultur posts and wondered if this method would work to establish a lawn? My husband and I are currently renovating an old farmhouse (before our "big move" to a small home on acreage...hopefully in VT), and I would like to establish some lawn around the house where a massive amount of non-native invasives were planted prior to us owning the house. We are looking to have areas of native plants interspersed in these areas, as well as small areas for herbs and veggies. The rest of the yard is established...this is just the area closest to the house where we've been working on the exterior.

Any thoughts would be great. I suspect that using twigs, or possibly mulch, with soil on top as a bed for seed would be best (would conform with the rest of the yard, could raise the area closest to the house to slope away, and would enrich the soil around the house as well).

Thanks for your thoughts.

My buried wood beds have settled unevenly, which is fine for my vegetable garden because I can keep adding material on top to even it out, but might in a lawn result in something lumpy and difficult to mow....

Hugelkultur in general will promote a better plant (grass/veggie/tree).
However The smaller they are the more Nitrogen they will use and so for the 1st year or so it might preform worse.
I am not too sure if placing water storage amendment around your foundation is such a good idea, even if it will elevate the area.

I would just compost the twig/mulch and then use the compost in the grass area.
It would settle even thus easier to maintain and it would make the grass "greener" and hold less water next to your foundation.
I would use the hugelkultur for the "NATIVES" that you want to plant.
With the mulch on top it will look better and more landscaped.

It seem that you partially doing this to increase the re-sale value so I would add some flowers too. Cheap grill, maybe some solar light. A shade cloth/grape vine arbor/trellis patio. Not too sure what the kiddos would like.

"Flowers make a cheap house look expensive." - Randy Roberts, one of Jacksonville's two Punks in the 70s.

(anecdote from my husband)

Tyler Ludens wrote:My buried wood beds have settled unevenly, which is fine for my vegetable garden because I can keep adding material on top to even it out, but might in a lawn result in something lumpy and difficult to mow....

I wondered about that. That was one of my bigger concerns....

S Bengi wrote:I would just compost the twig/mulch and then use the compost in the grass area.
It would settle even thus easier to maintain and it would make the grass "greener" and hold less water next to your foundation.
I would use the hugelkultur for the "NATIVES" that you want to plant.
With the mulch on top it will look better and more landscaped.

It seem that you partially doing this to increase the re-sale value so I would add some flowers too. Cheap grill, maybe some solar light. A shade cloth/grape vine arbor/trellis patio. Not too sure what the kiddos would like.

Hmmm, not so much. We need to replant the area after destroying in from renovations and I wondered about ways to effectively increase the soil quantity and quality around the house (we are "blessed" with clay-rich soil around here). We would obviously like for the exterior to look nice (we are dumping a gagillion dollars into renovating the exterior LOL), but the hugelkutur idea sprang from the desire to increase/improve the soil. However, the idea of more water around the foundation did not even occur to me! My hope was to lessen the amount of water that is retained close to the house by sloping, etc.

Best to keep the hugelkultur in the yard, I believe!

Tyler Ludens wrote:"Flowers make a cheap house look expensive." - Randy Roberts, one of Jacksonville's two Punks in the 70s.

(anecdote from my husband)

Made me laugh!

it might help to add wood products to the soil and then backblade it levelish and plant it with your lawn plants..but there might be some uneven settling.

That might actually work! I figure for plants around the house, the settling issue would not be as big of an issue, as we would mulch around the plant, etc.