If you've got more time than energy, like I do, smothering and lasagna is the easiest way to start a new garden bed for free, or almost. Sooo much easier than digging up grass. Just spread newspaper (about 10 sheets thick) or cardboard, overlapping well, until the area you want to be a bed is covered. Then cover the paper with 4-6" of finely shredded mulch and wait for the grass to die, usually 4-6 weeks but could be longer for some grasses. I've done this many, many times. My latest one is really ugly but I'm just trying to make lemonade out of lemons with this one... drought (probably aided by grubs) killed the grass here so I decided that would be the new sunny front bed I was considering. I did dig out a little spot that had hardly any grass and put some Cannas and Gladiolus there, a tiny baby maple tree, some Hibiscus cuttings which still just look stupid 'cuz they're "dead" sticks in the ground, then kind of working around it with smothering, and bark chips, which aren't my preference but I had them available. They don't stay in place if it ever rains really hard. Anyway, with this, I'm not planning to leave the bark chips there, they're just making sure the newspaper is held firmly to the contours of the ground to block the air and light from reaching the grass, which is what is needed to kill it. Whenever I can find more shredded hardwood, I'll replace the bark chips. Anyway, the newspaper decomposes and does not need to be removed later, just dig through it to add plants in the ground. I've also smothered grass with stuff that was handy, but does have to be removed to use the bed, like sheets of metal, old egg crate mattress topper, the bags of mulch that will cover the spot, whatever's handy. I think it's easier to wait for the grass to die than dig it up, and I don't mind if it has to get more ugly in the process of getting more pretty. One other benefit of smothering with a leave-in-place substance like paper or cardboard is that the weed seeds that may be in the ground are unable to germinate as they might be if you just dug up the grass and/or tilled. The lasagna comes into play if you add amendment layers to your smothering. For example, you could put the paper/cardboard, then kitchen scraps, ready to use compost, leaves, yard trimmings, whatever organic material (OM) that is handy, then the mulch (or not, if the other stuff is a thick enough layer to hold the paper in place and block the light.) It's not necessary to have lasagna layers when smothering, but when planting later, there's a huge improvement if a lot of OM was placed there. AND, while you're waiting, you can set potted plants there... I wrote this for someone complaining about clay, which you probably also have in ID so will paste it here also. Some of this is redundant... Before I moved to AL, I started many new gardens in OH, in the sub-clay they leave after removing the top soil, when making a housing...

Korina, LOL, you are so funny! ;) I would never sucker, anyone! and I wouldn't want anyone to try to clone me either! We all have all of these plants, and always wonder where the hell we can put them. You have extra babies and so do I. Generally, I like to grow my babies til first bloom, to see if any mutate, I especially hope for chimera's. But this year, I just have too many! I would like to try Wea Dear, Sunrise Waltz, and any plant with girl leaves. I thought you might like some of mine. I counted them, I have 84 babies and that's not including what's still in the leaf trays. I generally wait for first bloom, and then I visit the florists and garden centers in my area and sell them off for $1 each in bloom. This year I have too many, because I panicked when rob's plants all went into shock! and I have too many babies now. I can give some away, and will sell the others, don't worry, I don't mulch anything that's living. I just thought you'd like to trade. Blueberry Sprite is a new (2005) plant available from lyndonlyon.com, you can look it up there. It is a semi-mini with single purple/blue flowers edged in white. It is a robust, easy to grow plant and I really hope they register it, so that we can show it if we want. The mouse ears arrive dime size! The thing about it that I really love is how red the bloom stalks are! I feel the same way about Lemon Sundrop. I forgot to mention, I also have extra "Candy Crystals" Russell

Faron, You sound like me when I get a new piece of equipment for my home office that is as good as I expected or better. I feel like a got a new baby and I am amazed at all the new scanner, etc. can do. I am excited for you and know you will really be able to now do the job even better than you did great already and enjoy your job even more than you already do. Congratulations on your new "Baby" at work. We are all happy for you and you deserve this new piece of technology.

Jamil, your new plant looks like Plectranthus, or common name, Swedish Ivy. Very nice...keep on the cool side. They despise heat.