March 2017 - Lawn Solutions Australia

Month: March 2017

Your lawn and outdoor furniture

Posted on by Anthony

Outdoor furniture, swing sets, sports equipment can all create shade and compaction issues with your lawn. Here are some handy hints to keep your lawn looking great while still enjoying it.

If you like entertaining, have kids or both, you will probably have some sort of obstruction on your lawn. From a trampoline to an outdoor dining setting, swing set or soccer goals, parts of your lawn will be getting more wear and tear than its fair share.

Things like trampolines and soccer goals are easy, simply move them each time you mow so you can access the grass underneath and relocate them each time you do this. Remember to keep an eye on them through winter when the mowing slows down.

Swing sets and outdoor settings are a different story, constant pressure on the same area can cause the ground to compress making it hard for the grass to survive and thrive. If your setting is portable and you have the room, move it around every few weeks. If your swing set or outdoor setting is a permanent fixture, then you will need to take a different approach. Compacted areas should be aerated at least once a year, generally coming into spring. This will loosen the soil and allow the air and water into the grass roots. This can easily be done with a garden fork, specialised aerating machinery or even aerating sandals.

Another common issue for your lawn and balancing outdoor furniture is shade. Generally speaking, even the most shade tolerant of grasses needs at least a few hours of sunlight a day to survive. Try and setup your furniture and play equipment to give your lawn maximum exposure to the sun where possible.

How to test your soils pH level

Posted on by Anthony
  • Keeping your lawn’s pH in balance is a key part of any lawn maintenance program
  • The best time to fix your pH is before you install new turf but can still easily be done afterwards
  • Testing your pH every now and then will help determine any underlying problems

If you are looking to install a new lawn or your lawn’s been down a while and not thriving as well as it did years ago, then it’s a good time to look at your pH levels. pH stands for the ‘potential of hydrogen’ and is a scale of acidity from 0 to 14. A pH reading tells how acidic or alkaline a substance is, where more acidic solutions have lower pH and more alkaline solutions have higher pH. Acids have a pH that is less than 7. Alkalis have a pH that is greater than 7. Substances in the middle that aren’t acidic or alkaline are known as neutral and usually have a pH of 7. So, with that quick science lesson out of the way let’s look at how your soil pH affects your lawn.

The best time to carry out any soil improvements if you have the chance is prior to installing your new lawn and this includes any pH adjustments that may be needed. It is quite often necessary yet practical to adjust pH for existing lawns as part of a maintenance plan which we’ll look at in some detail following. The ideal pH range for your lawn is somewhere between 5.5 and 7. Many lawn types, buffalos in particular, have been known to do quite well in more alkaline soils up to a pH of 8, but getting closer to the neutral mark will prove more beneficial to your lawn’s performance in the long-term. Basically pH affects the solubility of minerals and nutrients essential for plant growth and if your soil is out of the optimum range nutrients become difficult or almost impossible to absorb. Measuring pH and then adjusting the levels may seem daunting, but there’s not that much really involved. Ideally, what we want is a lawn with a pH value around the neutral mark. Most Australian soil types are acidic more-often-than-not and the process of scratching off the topsoil when you’re building can expose more highly-acidic clay and this will potentially affect your lawn in the long-term.

How to measure soil pH

Measuring a soil’s pH is easy to do and doesn’t involve a complicated scientific experiment. All you need is a pH testing kit and they are readily available at hardware stores and nurseries, or online through Lawn Solutions Australia or our online store and a kit should cost under $30 and last for a number of years. When it comes to doing the soil test, collect a few samples from different locations around your lawn area and mix these together to get an average reading of the whole lawn, rather than just from one location. Dig down around 100 – to 150 mm (4 to 6 inches) with a hand spade or similar in a few spots and then mix up the samples in a bucket. Remove any grass or root matter and then take a small amount of soil and perform the test as per the kit’s instructions. Once you have the result you can look at a few ways to adjust the pH if necessary. For a new lawn you can cultivate or spread and rake-in the material you’re going to use directly into the new soil bed or for existing lawns you can apply and water-in to the lawn and something like a drop-spreader works best, or even cast out by hand for smaller areas.

Correct pH imbalance:

If your soil is acidic or alkaline the you can add some easily obtained soil conditioners – readily available from nurseries and the like – with the following rates that will move the pH approximately one point on the scale.

Acidic Soils

Acidic soils (5.5 and below) can be helped with an application of lime or dolomite at a rate of approximately 100 grams per square metre. If you have a heavier loam soil use 200 grams per square metre and 300-400 grams per square metre for heavy clay soils – it is often best to apply this amount of lime over two or three applications to avoid causing any shock to your lawn.

Alkaline soils

Alkaline soils (8 and above) are a little more difficult to correct but it is possible by adding sulphur or a sulphate such as iron sulphate or sulphate of ammonia at a rate of approximately 25 grams per square metre for sandy soils, 50 grams per square metre for heavier loam and up to 100 grams per square metre for heavy clay soil. If you carry out this process over a few weeks and test in between you can get your lawn to a stage where a happy medium around the neutral 7 zone exists and your lawn will take-up nutrients, minerals and trace elements more readily.

If you carry out a test every year or so you may also be able to see if there are any things that are affecting the pH on an ongoing basis; fertilisers, water, drainage or other leaching issues If you’re unsure about attempting the process yourself get in touch with a Lawn Solutions turf grower or one of the many Lawn Solutions Centres around the country that will be happy to help with any pH woes. Getting your lawn’s pH back in balance is one of the key things before you look at a more comprehensive fertiliser regime.

Video – Treating your lawn for lawn grubs

Posted on by Anthony

Army worm or sod web worm can be really bad news and can attack all sorts of lawns right across Australia. Sadly their favourite lawn is a healthy one. If you notice a patch of lawn that is slightly shorter or thinner or that looks like it might have been recently mown (but you know it hasn’t) you could have army worm. What are lawn grubs? Lawn grubs are leaf eating caterpillars, the larvae of an adult moth. If you find your lawn afflicted with the curse of the lawn grubs don’t despair. Treating and eradicating these pests is relatively easy. Lawn grubs can also be known as army worms or sod web worms and despite their name they all can cause a lot of damage to your turf in a relatively short amount of time, in fact, lawn grubs can feed on 30cms of lawn each and every night.

6 little known tips on how your lawn cleans up Australia too!

Posted on by Anthony
  • Your lawn actually contributes to a range of environmental and health benefits
  • A healthy backyard lawn is a big contributor to ongoing efforts to clean-up Australia

Australia has one of the best natural landscapes in the world. From our pristine beaches to ancient forests and flourishing sea life, we have some of the most unique flora and fauna in the world. But the rubbish we continue to create is often seen choking our streets, beaches, parks, bushland and waterways.

You may be helping with the problem with Clean Up Australia Day.  . . . go to www.cleanup.org.au for further information. And keep up the good fight after the flurry of the weekend by keeping your eye on the rubbish in your area. As our parklands become more scarce in our expanding urbanised cities, it’s important to keep our remaining greenspace areas clean and healthy. Talk to your council about getting involved in ‘Adopt-a-Park’ or other programs. Like much of the pollution issues that pervade our every-day, simple steps at home can often help with the wider impacts on our environment. Take on board some of the following tips on how you can lessen your environmental and pollution footprint – starting with your front and back yards.

  1. Cleans the air: Turfgrass is in fact one of the best filters for helping to clean the environment as it takes up microscopic pollutants, pollens and other particles and traps these in the thatch area of your turf where the microbes and other organisms turn them into inert material.
  2. Healthy turf – healthy people: Healthy turfgrass like a backyard lawn offers a safe place for play and also helps to dampen noise, reduce glare, prevent erosion and also reduce storm water runoff. This safe-haven effect is important with many studies linking closeness to greenspace and improved health and wellbeing.
  3. Low inputs – low outputs: If you can keep your lawn healthy with a good balance of fertiliser and use herbicides and pesticides only when necessary, you’ll help to make your environment cleaner with less water-shed runoff with less contaminants in heavy rainfall.
  4. Keeping your cool: When it comes to other environmental benefits, your back yard is a big contributor on the right side of the ledger. Low-level-irrigated turf can cool a backyard by up as much as 10 – 40 degrees Celsius or more compared to other surfaces and help offset the heat island effect becoming more common in our cities.
  5. Lowering your footprint: Lawn areas are also important to mitigate against climate change as turf captures and stores carbon, known as carbon sequestration. Turfgrass absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2) as an input for photosynthesis which reduces carbon in the atmosphere and releases oxygen.

Appropriately maintained turfgrass can sequester carbon at a rate that makes it a net carbon sink, in that it can capture, convert and store more carbon in the soil than is produced to maintain it (i.e. mow, irrigate and fertilise). In fact, recent studies from the United States suggest that turf can sequester an average of 1.2 tonne of carbon per hectare, per year for as much as 30 to 40 years. Some studies suggest this figure might be substantially higher, depending on the climate and maintenance.

  1. Other greener options: Other simple things can help make your lawn greener by being greener. Look into a reuse-water-system or rainwater tank and irrigate your lawn and garden from these sources. Mulch your lawn clippings and look at a compost area for your food and other green-waste scraps. The compost is great for your garden or as an organic topdressing mix when mixed with some river sand.

So when it comes to jumping into your lawn maintenance this weekend, tackle it with some renewed confidence that by keeping a healthy lawn that you’re actually doing your bit to help the environment and keeping Australia beautiful!

Thinking of replacing your lawn? Follow these 4 expert tips for best results

Posted on by Anthony
  • Compaction, increased shade and wear are the biggest reasons to renew your lawn
  • Lawn replacement is a cheaper option than other surfaces in most cases
  • Choose the right type of lawn to get the best return on your investment

Many home lawns get to the stage where even the best maintenance and upkeep sees their lawn areas struggle to thrive and sometimes even survive. It’s a common scenario that the lawn type is either not right, the soil and ground preparation was poor in the beginning or shade and wear and even drainage issues become more problematic, the older the lawn gets. New housing estates are often rushed, with little attention to lawn areas and quite commonly are the dumping area for builders refuse whilst the building is going on and then it’s a quick clean-up and a trickle of topsoil – or whatever is laying around – and the turf down as quick as possible. Often there can be drainage issues, the soil and turf type were probably the cheapest available at the time and the inevitable increase of shade and wear with growing shrubs and children taking their toll on your lawn.

Replacing you lawn

If it’s got to the point-of-no-return, then look at the following 4 options when you consider replacing your lawn:

  1. Call in the experts:

Get in touch with a lawn replacement expert like one of the many Lawn Solutions Australia Turfgrowers around the country. They can often give you a quote to rip out your old lawn and install a new one and if they can’t do it will certainly have a network of reliable landscapers or installers that can do the job.

  1. Cheaper is rarely better:

It’s a bit like if you were considering plastic surgery then searching around for the cheapest option . . . it may not always produce the most desired results. You’ve probably learnt it’s the same with most things in life so talk to your local Lawn Solutions Australia Turfgrower about the best options for the type of lawn for your replacement job and not just the cheapest. There’s a number of different types and turf types like TifTuf Hybrid Bermuda, Sir Walter DNA Certified and Sir Grange Zoysia that are all great grasses, but have different qualities when it comes to shade, wear and drought tolerance and the like. Getting the lawn type right is probably one of the main considerations and can amount to only a few percent difference price-wise in the overall scheme of things.

Learn more about the different grasses available here.

  1. Do the job right

Again, it helps to take on expert advice but in the majority of cases replacing your lawn is a great opportunity to get some basics right. Look at the levels and falls, any drainage issues and trees / shrubs you may wish to thin-out or replace. If you’re looking at getting machinery in then it’s a perfect time to remedy any of these issues. Garden beds, edging and of course replacing any poor soil is important when it comes to starting over.

  1. Cover all the aspects:

There’s nothing like local knowledge but if you’re planning on tackling the job yourself then follow these steps: – Identify any services before you start and ‘dial before you dig’. Locate any phone, electrical, sewer, water, gas or irrigation lines and fittings that you could possibly disturb with your makeover. – Spray out old grass and vegetation. Even if you are removing a significant depth of soil it’s a good idea to use a non-selective herbicide like glyphosate (Roundup) with a couple of applications to kill as much of the existing grass as possible. – Start from scratch. Look at levels and drainage and getting subsoil right. Consider irrigation at this stage and then lightly break-up any clayey subsoil by cultivating and adding some lime and gypsum and then bring in a good amount of quality sandy-loam topsoil for your new turf bed. Get your topsoil levels right with garden beds and paths and lightly roll and leave enough depth for your turf to lay flush with these fixtures. Organise with your turfgrower for your turf delivery and installation and ensure that you’ve got adequate water for establishment – enough for a daily watering for four to six weeks. Once your new lawn is underway, check out Lawn Solutions Australia’s other hints and tips and the range of quality lawn products available for keeping your new lawn in peak condition.

Lawncare doesn’t need to be difficult and simple hints from Lawn Solutions Australia and their network of member turf growers and Lawn Solutions Centres Australia-wide can help with advice and products to keep your lawn in top condition.