The Sunday Mail
WHEN you furnish your house you ensure you include a good carpet. It is the same in the garden: a well landscaped garden needs a good lawn to complete the picture.
A lawn brings order and serenity to the landscape. There is no better time than now during the rainy season to establish or renew your lawn. There is an array of lawns to choose from. The most important thing is to choose the correct type of lawn for your situation usually an issue to do with how much water is available.
The most resilient but now not so popular are the cynodon dactylon cultivars like royal cape, maadi river, magennis, sauermans, Australian evergreen, tifdwarf and tiflawn. Buffalo (stenotaphrum secundatum) grass is a coarse heavy feeder grass that requires adequate water.
Widely now a weed in most vlei areas is pennisetum clandestinum (kikuyu). It is excellent for heavy traffic areas but needs watering during dry season. My favourite shade grass par excellent for shady areas is Durban grass (dactyloctenium australe). Another not so popular grass species is Beira grass (paspalum notatum), which is good for wet and vlei soils.
Once you have made your decision, the next step is land preparation. This is the probably the only time you have an opportunity to feed your grass roots adequately, so make the most of it.
Dig your soil to at least a depth of 30cm, bringing it to a fine tilth. Incorporate manure and fertiliser at this stage.
If your site has been a construction zone this is the time to remove all broken bricks and stones, because they will cause your lawn to have dry patches later. At this stage apply single super phosphate at a rate of 70g per square metre with well decomposed manure particularly for poor soils.
Dig in and thoroughly mix to a depth of 15-20cm. You can also apply a general fertiliser like compound D at 50g per square metre during the planting stage.
When preparing your ground particularly on sloppy areas try to do this before the rains really set in to avoid excessive erosion. Try to incorporate various height variations on your lawn to bring variety on your big stretch of lawn. There are many ways to establish a lawn depending on your budget. You can either go for the instant way of purchasing cut established lawn, which you will just lay out like a carpet and have an instant transformation to your garden.
With a constrained budget plant grass runners or sprouts at various spacings. The closer you space the cuttings the faster it covers your area. You can also opt to plant grass seed instead. The most important thing here is to bring your ground to a fine tilth.
You can broadcast your seed by hand or use a seed broadcaster, which is more uniform and accurate, avoiding wastage.
Cover the seed with soil or organic matter with a spreader. The area must be kept moist for the seed to germinate well. Control weeds on new lawn by using selective herbicides.
The job is far from over; the care of your lawn will determine how long you will enjoy it. Next week we shall explore how you take care of your garden carpet.
Start planting!
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