Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 Mar 16, 2016 7:16 pm We're landscaping newbies but have finally reached the stage of laying our turf in a few days! We're in Melbourne eastern suburbs. We followed (as best we could) Fu's instructions on soil prep. Existing lawn area was raised above existing clay soil by up to 80cm in some areas to level the backyard. We used a top soil called lawn mix (60 percent screened soil, 40 percent compost) to do this. In addition, we added and rotary hoed compost, zeolite, perlite, bactivate and powerfeed as per Fu's instructions. A bit stressed re the lawn mix though, I'm afraid it's too sandy, but hoping the additional soil amendments will help. Any thoughts? Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ New Lawn-with progress pics 2Mar 16, 2016 9:01 pm It will be fine, turf soil mixes are always sandy (in vic) to allow better water penetration, root growth and doesn't compact like a clay soil. Only issue you may have is the soil level could sink as the 40% organic matter breaks down to about 5-10%. If your levels go out of wack just top dress later. Re: New Lawn-with progress pics 3Mar 19, 2016 7:05 pm Thanks for the advice beatrixkiddo. We hope it will turn out okay too! I have gone into some detail below as I loved reading Psyko's thread on his sapphire buffalo and have found this forum very helpful so hopefully this can help others too. Today we laid 90 square meters of Sapphire Buffalo. We bought from Austral Turf who charged $12.20sqm including delivery. Apparently this price is a special. After the turf was laid (took us about 5 hours), we applied molasses, seasol and some more bactivate (http://www.bioactivesoilsolutions.com.au/index.php) on top and now giving it a good watering. We had some extra turf left over so have planted it on our nature strip which we hastily prepared without rotary hoeing. It's right next to a large gum tree, and we just put lawn mix, compost and some dynamic lifter (MIL put it...not my choice) and then some molasses and seasol. Will be an interesting experiment compared to Fu's soil prep. Oh, and we also just rolled, didn't get the plate compactor again (We did compact after rotary hoeing a week ago though). Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: New Lawn-with progress pics 4Mar 21, 2016 1:44 pm Does anyone know if it's normal for new turf to look a bit yellow or brown (dead) in parts a few days after laying? Re: New Lawn-with progress pics 8Jul 31, 2016 9:22 pm Sorry for the lack of updates. The pics below are from about a month ago, so 3 months after we first laid the lawn. We were pretty strict with using Fu's lawn regime of molasses, seasol and powerfeed for the first 2 months, but I must admit, we've become a little lazy over most of winter. Today, we did another round of molasses, seasol and powerfeed, plus seamungus. It's been about 2 months since we did anything to the lawn. It's definitely still alive but looking a bit yellow, with bits of green. From certain angles you can still see where the edges of the lawn was laid. Lots of weeds cropped up over this period too. Interestingly, the part of the lawn with the most shade is the greenest. Re: New Lawn-with progress pics 9Aug 01, 2016 8:52 am If you poke a finger down through the turf is it moist or dry ? Just keep the water up to it as the roots need time to get down to the soil level. It has been pretty dry here with the last decent drop of rain nearly three weeks ago. Stewie 8 6137 5 6812 the leaves that are now underground go yellow, the tips that poke through photosynthesise and have chlorophyll, same reason they grow rhubarb in the dark. 5 4858 |