Re: soil solarization?

Depending on what is growing there, how big an area it is, your budget ($ and labor), whether you want to plant plugs or seeds, and how soon you want to see your new plants growing there, it may be more effective to use (a) a sod cutter to remove turf, then either remove the sod (if it's bermuda) or turn it upside down, or (b) cardboard covered with free mulch, into which you could immediately plant plugs in pockets of potting soil (or plant seeds in pots, which you can plant out when they are big enough to transplant).

Solarization works only during the hottest months of the year (so you would not have your new meadow until very late summer or early fall), and it is not effective against some weeds.

See Chapter 7: Weeds (p. 297-340) in Pests of Landscape Trees and Shrubs: An Integrated Pest Management Guide, Steve H. Dreistadt, 2004, 2nd edition, UC-ANR, for a list of which weeds are not easily controlled with solarization. At my community garden, one of the gardeners (following advice from a master gardener), covered the plot with plastic over the winter and got a flourishing, happy, more vigorous crop of bermuda grass.

Some water districts are offering rebates for replacing a lawn with drought-resistant plants, but to get the rebate you have to apply before the lawn is replaced and then complete the project within a specified time.

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