Gardening and Horticulture - What have I got myself into?

Please don't laugh! I wanted to remove about 300 square feet of grass, then plant a few things and mulch the rest. I cut out the design and little did I know that it was back-breaking work to remove the darn thing. I probably removed about 10 square feet and then gave up. Two questions:

1. Is there a machine that somehow helps you with the task that I can rent?
2. Can I just mulch over the grass and forget about removing it?

Had I known it was so difficult, I would not have started it. Please help!!!

Mulching over the lawn, or even using shade cloth, won't kill the existing grass. The grass will eventually grow through. There are three ways that I know of for removing an established lawn...

1) dig it out with a shovel...labor intensive.

2) rent a sod cutter machine, or if none are available to rent then hire a lawn service to do this for you.

3) spray "RoundUp" on the area of the lawn...this is what our local nursery suggested to us when we were doing the same thing. I think we sprayed either two or three light applications within a two week span. After a couple weeks, once the grass was completely dead, we planted new shrubs, a tree and some flowers. We did this approximately three years ago. If you decide to use RoundUp be sure not to spray it on the lawn during a windy day.

One other option that I did, was to create a berm or mound. I put a couple feet of top soil over the grass. Ofcourse moving enough top soil to cover 300 square feet will be a lot of work as well. The easiest in my mind is MsChip's Round-up solution. But as MsChip said, be careful, this stuff will kill just about anything it touches.

Thank you, MsChip and PJ57. This "RoundUp" thing sounds like a good idea.