Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 Apr 02, 2016 9:43 am Hope the brains trust can help here! I'm in the northern suburbs of Melbourne with 2 small patches of ....well, what should be lawn! One gets quite a bit more sun than the other but neither have quite full sun, lose a little early/late in the day. The front path loses a bit more light. A year or so ago we laid down some more sandy loam on top as we did a bit of work around the place and tried planting Rye grass seeds (it had 2 types of grass, one would grow quick then die off). they've never taken off particularly well, always been very patchy, never really turned into a 'lawn'. We've put some more seeds down but it still didn't take So we're thinking maybe we need to change to something else....buffalo grass, when it comes through, gives a thick cover and it seems to be hardy (although I thought Rye grass was supposed to be as well). So, any thoughts? Worth changing to buffalo grass, and if so, can we just put the seeds down over a fairly sparse lawn and let it take over? Anything else we could be doing wrong, or we should be doing? Help would be greatly appreciated! We could lay turf, but seeds are so much cheaper... Re: Can't get my lawn to take off! Should I change to buffa 2Apr 02, 2016 10:44 am What kind of soil prep did you do? Hopefully a little more than throw a few mm of topsoil over the builders rubble and then some seeds. Fu's excellent guide here viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21938 and this one about more general soil prep viewtopic.php?f=19&t=43570 are a good start. What sort of soil is under the loam you introduced and do you have good soil drainage - either sloping away or ag drains etc ? On the other hand, are you giving these areas adequate water? We have had some pretty hot weather over summer. Laying turf, while more expensive is almost guaranteed to get you a good result. Stewie Re: Can't get my lawn to take off! Should I change to buffa 3Apr 02, 2016 11:12 pm Didn't do any soil prep other than putting the topsoil down. There is a slight slope for drainage. Might be possible we haven't been watering enough.....new grass takes a LOT of water Re: Can't get my lawn to take off! Should I change to buffa 4Apr 03, 2016 12:45 pm If you haven't put down at least 100mm of good grade topsoil with additives as in Fu's guide then you are probably wasting your time - seeds or turf. A well conditioned topsoil will give the grass ample room to grow, to send down deep roots and help minimise the amount of water you will need to keep it alive and looking good over the hot, dry months of summer. As with anything - laying a concrete slab, painting a wall or laying down a good lawn - good prep is the key. Stewie Re: Can't get my lawn to take off! Should I change to buffa 5Apr 05, 2016 5:06 pm First of all rye grass isn't tough in the slightest when it gets warm. Either is fescue, both are cool season grasses. You need a warm season grass like a buffalo or a couch (santa ana is the pick for melb) or a kikuyu. All the warm season grasses grow well oct to may. Cool season grasses like rye and fescue grow well may to nov. Take your pick, a nice lawn in summer or winter. Both can make reasonable lawns in their off season but require a tonne of inputs to do so. Can't get my lawn to take off! Should I change to buffalo? 6Apr 05, 2016 5:08 pm Should note kikuyu does well year round in Melb but is the highest maintainence grass there is.... Re: Can't get my lawn to take off! Should I change to buffa 7Apr 09, 2016 9:55 am That's good to note....we fail hard at garden so low maintenance is probably best for us Hi Mofflepop, I would recommend finding a building designer to prepare plans, they should design to your specified budget. The benefit is you can tender the project out… 9 20354 Hi, you've probably already resolved this, however, Commbank will probably pay the funds to you after you send evidence the work is done regardless the change in the quotes. 1 35305 5 10459 |