This is my first post, however I have been reading this forum extensively - including all 36 pages or so on Fu Manchu's soil thread.
History
To give you a run down of my situation, I bought my first home 6 months ago in the Forest Lake area of Brisbane. I have a decent sized backyard of approximately 240m2.
This backyard area didn't look too bad at first, there was average grass cover but also weeds. I was new to lawn maintenance so I just mowed the lawn when it got long and it seemed okay... until we started heading into Spring.
I don't know if I mowed too low or that I was mulching the clippings instead of binning them but rather suddenly my backyard transformed into a cesspool of weeds.
It was so bad I deemed it unrecoverable and decided I wanted to kill it all off and lay new turf.
Which is how I've ended up on these forums on how to get a quality lawn and how important soil prep is.
I will be looking at doing the soil and laying turf come Autumn when its cooler and this gives me time to source all the products I need and gain some insight on anything I need to take into consideration.
First, here is what my backyard looks like (pre-weed):
The Soil
It is now all dead after a treatment of glyphosate. I plan to follow Fu Manchu's mantra of organic compost etc. etc.
I have dug 2 holes about 400mm deep in 2 locations to see what the soil is like.
The first hole was dug in the upper area towards the house, left of the deck and pretty much in the mid-centre of the first backyard photo. This dirt was reasonably easy to dig and smelt quite earthy:
The second hole was dug in the middle of the yard down the back near the fence. This dirt was much harder to dig into, getting exceptionaly hard at the 300-400mm depth. Interestingly it didn't seem too clay like it was sort of like very heavily compacted sandy soil though it did look like there were maybe small bits of clay. It didn't really have much smell to it unlike where I dug the first hole:
What I am after is some advice about whether I need to change anything to take into account the soil condition. From what I understand though, is that the soil preparation method shouldn't really change. I wonder if I would need to add any sandy soil to the mix? I plan to add about 10m3 of certified organic compost to my backyard (along with the other additives). Should this be enough?
Organic Compost
Next question though is what do you think about this organic compost? I am especially interested in Fu's opinion on this since he seems to be the resident expert.
Centenary landscaping sell certified organic compost and they are just up the road:
http://www.centenarylandscaping.com.au/ ... g-mix.html
Their certified product is the Enviro Premium Compost:
The AS4454 is the same compliance as the other organic compost recommended in WA. I have 2 concerns however.
First, is that it is primarily cow manure which I read that Fu Manchu thinks is a waste since it will decompose to nothing?
Second issue is that they charge $98 per m3! This seems a lot of money compared to some of the other recommended suppliers from WA which are charging around the $60-70 mark?
What are your thoughts and can you recommend me a possibly better and/or cheaper product in the Brisbane/Gold Coast area?
The turf
My last question (long thread I know!) is regarding the turf.
I have narrowed it down to either the EZ turf (highly recommended from this forum) or Sapphire Buffalo.
I would be happy going EZ turf except that I am concerned about its ability to cope with shaded areas. My house is North facing so during winter the areas all along the back end of the house may not get much (if any) sun over this period. Summer would not be an issue.
This is why I am considering Sapphire Buffalo as it is highly tolerant of shade. Otherwise they are quite similar on spec.
Do you think shade would be a concern for my lawn based on the 2 backyard photos I have linked?
Thankyou everyone who takes the time to read my thread and offering your opinions. I want to get my new backyard lawn right so that's why I am asking the expert so I don't end up with dead lawn.