do i need to remove grass before i make a new landscape bed?

The tool that crossstitchkelly is referring to is called a "maddox."

Yes, you need to remove grass before planting perennials or shrubs. Otherwise the grass will continue to grow up around them and how you gonna mow that?? Also the grass will choke out the other plants.

I strongly recommend renting a sod kicker. Its heart attack work but you'll manage.

As for round up, it takes a long time if you use regular consumer round up and only spray once. Get it concentrated, buy a pressure sprayer ($20), mix it a lot more concentrated than the directions indicate, and spray it every day for a week. It will die quickly. Alternatively you could use professional round up which has a much higher % of active ingredient (50% compared to 2%). That you could spray once and the grass would be dead in a week. You'd still probably want to dig it out though so might as well rent a sod kicker.

I've never seen the cover-with-black-plastic method but I imagine that it would work, but would take quite a while.

Also if you put a couple of inches of top soil on top of any weed membrane you'll have weeds growing in that top soil, right on top of the weed membrane. Wood mulch is best for plants. If you use it, don't use any weed membrane. The mulch rots and decomposes and becomes soil, so if you put wood mulch on top of a weed membrane in two years you'll have weeds growing right on top of your weed membrane. Lay the mulch 3" thick and top dress with 1" when it gets sun bleached. If you're going to use rocks instead of wood mulch then it makes a lot of sense to use a weed membrane. Fabric is better than plastic because it allows water through. Keep in mind that there are very few perennials that will survive in a sunny rock bed. If you want a lot of pretty flowers you have to use wood mulch. It keeps the soil cool, retains moisture in the soil, prevents weeds (not entirely but it helps), and insulates roots during winter.

Rent a sod kicker.

Yes! There are basically 3 ways I know of. You can get rid of the grass by putting down several layers of newspaper and keep the area moist to ensure the newspaper stays somewhat wet. This will make sure the grass is smothered and will die. It takes a while though. About a month. The roundup method works too but you have to wait several WEEKS not just one. You can also actually remove the grass which is a lot quicker but this can be quite labor intensive. The link below explains very well how to start a new lanscape bed. Enjoy!

it's better to remove grass before you make a new landscape. If you want to include weeding in your gardening, you don't have to. Try to lay under a weed-prevention membrance before you lay the top soil. It will help to prevent grass growing.

You'll need to pull it up. A good way, if you don't want to rent a sod cutter, is to use a small gardening tool that looks like a pick axe. It's got a flat blade on it, like a thin hoe, and it's great for cutting out weeds. Also, I used it to cut out sod before I planted my hostas. All you do is cut a length of sod the width of the blade about every foot, then you can roll up the sod and be rid of it.

A good weed killer will do. but it is pretty high son i would just cut the grass real short and lay my plastic or what ever your putting under the mulch and it will kill it out because it cant get no sun. and also you need to poke Small holes in the under cover about the size of dimes about a 6in apart so the water can go though it so it would wash your mulch away

Dale,

Ignore these evil women and buy a $20 bottle of round-up! I simply spray the areas that I want to go away, wait a couple of days, then lay in my new soil and plantings. Keep in mind the depth that your new plantings will be, since round-up will kill for a couple of weeks!

you can, or you can do what i did and but the black stuff down, it kills the grass and then i put my topsoil on top (2 feet of topsoil) and planted