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How to choose a lawn or lawn alternative
If you plan to install or reinvigorate a lawn, which type of grass is best suited to your needs, and should you choose seed or turf?
Despite advertising claims to the contrary, it is almost impossible in coastal New South Wales to establish a good quality, hard wearing, long term lawn from seed.
For a conventional home lawn in the Sydney region – and most other regions in Australia, coastal or inland – turf is much the better choice. The best all round turf is probably an Australian-bred soft-leaf variety of Stenotaphrum secundatum Buffalo Grass, marketed as 'Sir Walter'.
'Sir Walter' has a low silica content, making it softer underfoot and less likely to cause skin irritation than other Buffalo varieties. It is hard wearing and quick to recover from wear.
It is also tolerant of shade and overhanging trees, retains its winter colour well, requires less water and fertiliser, is less susceptible to fungal and insect attack and produces a dense, weed-resistant sward with very little thatch. This and other patented grasses should be provided with a certificate of authenticity from a licensed grower.
'Sir Walter' is best at heights between 25 mm and 75 mm, maintained with a standard petrol-driven rotary mower or mulcher mower convertible to a rotary mower. Cylinder mowers, hover mowers, some electric mowers and most cordless and hand mowers are not recommended.
For more information, visit the 'Sir Walter' website: www.sirwalter.com.au.
For the lawn enthusiast wanting a fine textured, 'bowling green' lawn in full sun, and prepared to accept a high level of maintenance, 'Windsor Green' is a selected form of Cynodon dactylon Common Couch, a semi-dwarf, light green to mid-green grass, with relatively good winter colour retention. It prefers sandy soil, tolerates poor saline soils, wears well and has excellent recovery from wear, excellent drought resistance and good disease resistance. With a cylinder mower, it allows close mowing to 6 mm.
'Greenlees Park' is another good Couch variety, while the CT2 variety is said to be even better. Couch grasses do not grow well in shade.
Pennisetum clandestinum Kikuyu, is probably the cheapest turf available. It is highly invasive and has little other than price to recommend it.
If they are to retain their colour, Fescues and other cool season grasses need copious amounts of water during summer. Festuca arundinacea Tall Fescue, survives on less water than most.
As Fescue produces no runners, it does not recover well from wear. It is also subject to lawn grub infestation, requiring frequent applications of lawn grub killer, that is highly toxic to birds that feed on affected grubs.
Fescue is popular in some Southern Highlands gardens and in other cool climate gardens where retention of a bright green colour throughout the year takes precedence over ecological considerations.
An Australian species, Microlaena stipoides Weeping Grass, has a fine textured, pale green leaf that keeps its colour and grows in full sun, although it prefers semi-shade to full shade, and moist, moderately fertile soil. Unlike most Australian grasses it responds well to feeding, and it mows at 37 - 50 mm.
During the twelve month establishment period, it is difficult to stop weeds from taking over, unless a pre-emergent herbicide is applied. Weeping Grass is therefore best confined to smaller, more manageable areas. Once established, it makes an excellent lawn, though not as lush as 'Sir Walter' nor as fine and dense as Couch.
Weeping Grass is usually propagated in containers known as 'Grow-cells' and 'Gro-tubes' set at 300 mm centres. These are available from Harvest Seeds & Native Plants in Terrey Hills, NSW. Telephone 02 9450 2699.
Whichever type of lawn you choose, remember to include in your calculations the real costs involved – including the environmental costs – that are substantially more than a well designed garden of trees, shrubs and lawn alternatives.
If the lawn is to remain attractive and free from weeds, it will need regular maintenance. This means regular mowing with its attendant noise pollution, depletion of water resources, feeding with chemical fertilisers and treatment with toxic herbicides, fungicides and pesticides; all of which adversely affect Australia’s fragile environment.
It also means spiking, edging, repairing and occasional rolling, on top of the initial cost and regular maintenance of a petrol-driven lawn mower.
Australian lawns occupy more space than any single food crop, consume vastly more fertiliser, toxic herbicide, fungicide and pesticide per hectare than farmland. They account for 25 percent upwards of household water use.
According to eco-architect and stormwater drainage expert Humberto Urriola, bushland vegetation is supported by an active soil layer aerated by by micro-organisms and deep-rooted plants. This layer is largely absent from urban parks and gardens dominated by shallow-rooted grass. These have relatively inert soil; in wet weather they tend to become waterlogged and shed surface water as run-off.
USA gardening columnist Michael Pollan describes these manicured lawns as "nature under totalitarian rule".
A Colorado University team recently discovered that cut grass reacts to mowing by releasing into the atmosphere large quantities of acetaldehyde, acetone [that may account for the characteristic sweet smell of cut grass], butanone and methanol, all contributors to air pollution. For these and other reasons, designers, horticulturists and gardeners are changing to low-maintenance indigenous grasses, wildflowers and lawn alternatives that feed and shelter indigenous wildlife and require little in the way of pesticides and supplementary water.
Despite their disadvantages, however, lawns are of course pleasant to walk and sit on, and in some respects the best groundcover for children to play on.
If the property is sold though, a well designed low maintenance garden will add value as it matures and should be more attractive to prospective buyers than an expanse of high maintenance lawn.
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