Author: Sarah

Our gardens are our pets window to the outside world, with many sniffs to smell and places to run. To keep our lawns safe for our four-legged friends there are five simple steps that you can take to make your outdoor space pet friendly.

The 5 simple steps to keeping a pet friendly lawn are:

1. Avoid toxic plants
2. Have a fenced in area
3. Use a pet friendly turf variety
4. A mix of shaded and sunny spots
5. Use pet friendly lawn care products

Want to know more?

Step 1 – Avoid toxic plants

Surprisingly, several plants can harm your pets. Their severity ranging from mild rashes, stomach pain, mouth ulcers to vomiting, irritation to the mouth, and convulsions, these requiring urgent veterinary care.

Although most of the time our pets won’t be interested in these plants, it is important to be aware of these plants if they are in your garden.

Some plants that can be toxic for pets include:

• Bird of paradise
• Aloe
• Tulips
• Daffodils
• Most plants with bulbs
• Ivy
• Lilies
• Brunfelsia (yesterday, today, tomorrow)
• Gum trees
• Blue green algae
• Rhubarb

For a more extensive list please click here.

Step 2 – Have a fenced in area

Having a safe fenced in area for your dog to run around in will help stop your pet from getting into mischief.

When installing a fence, you want it to be both practical and look great! There is a variety of options available to suit all budgets, ranging from timber, iron, and wire fencing just to name a few.

If you have an existing fence that is failing to keep your pets inside, walk the boundary and check for any possible escape routes.

Step 3 – Use a pet friendly turf variety

Humans are not the only ones who love going out and relaxing on the lawn, our pets do too! So, when looking for the best turf variety for your home, it is important to consider not only your needs but your pets too!

TifTuf Hybrid Bermuda is a fast-repairing turf variety. This means if the lawn is going to receive a lot of wear from pets and kids, it will be able to repair itself fast. This turf variety has a soft fine leaf that is great to touch and feels great underfoot.

Sir Walter DNA Certified Buffalo is a hardier grass and performs well in high wear areas. Sir Walter is great with pets and kids, has a soft broadleaf, is low allergenic, and is weed resistant.

Step 4 – Mix of shaded and sunny spots

Having both shaded and sunny spots throughout your lawn is important to keep your pets happy.

On a hot summer day, shaded areas are a great place for our pets to cool off. To help create more shaded areas in your garden you can plant some trees, or even add some furniture that your pets can go underneath.

Sunny areas allow for your pets to soak up the sun on a cool winter day.

Step 5 – Pet friendly lawn care products

When it comes to using lawn care products, it is important to know if the products you are using around your pets are safe.

Firstly, always read and follow the label’s instructions. If you are unsure of anything, please confirm with your supplier for further details.

Granular fertilisers are safe to use around pets if they are applied as per the application rate and are watered correctly into the lawn/earth. Once this is done, the granules are very difficult to access. But it is always best to keep pets off the lawn for 24 hours after using a granular product on the lawn.

Once a liquid fertiliser has dried and absorbed into the leaf you are fine to let your pets return to the lawn. This can take a few hours depending on the weather.

As chickens will peck into the soil profile, it is best to stick to using a liquid fertiliser.

For more information on using fertilisers and granular products around pets, please click here.

Avoid using bated products for snails, mice, insects, and other pests as they can be fatal. If your pet does have contact with one of these baited products, seek veterinary advice immediately.

For more advice on lawn care with pets, check out our other blogs here.

Plants and hedges around a lawn can help bring the finishing touches to a garden. They are a great way to help personalise your home to help make it unique from the other houses on your street. They can be used to help soften edges around the garden and lawn while providing a contrast in texture and colour.

While the choices are endless when it comes to choosing plants, we have put together a list of our favourites. These are Monkey Grass, Agapanthus, Magnolias, and hedges.

Key considerations

But first, just like lawns, different plants will grow better in different conditions. Some things to consider are:

• What are your garden design goals?
• What are you wanting to achieve? Privacy barrier, visual border, separation between different levels etc.
• How much sunlight does the area receive?

Monkey Grass

Monkey grass is a great plant for creating borders around your lawn. This perennial grows 12 inches tall and is best suited for part shade part sun areas. This is a low maintenance clumping plant and will not spread to other areas of the garden and lawn.

Agapanthus

If your area is in full sun and are after a plant that can withstand heat and drought, agapanthus is a great choice! They have dark green strap-like foliage and usually grow in clumps. Their flowers come out in spring in several shades blue and white. There are many varieties available, with each growing at different heights and different colours.

Magnolias

Magnolia trees will grow great alongside a fence line. They will come to bloom in spring, with either pink or white flowers that have a sweet fragrance. Their leaves are large and oval shaped with smooth edges. Magnolias prefer part-shade to full sun. Planting near a house or fence will allow then to get both sun and shade throughout the day.

Hedges

Hedges are one of the more popular options when it comes to planting around a lawn. As there is a huge range of plants to choose from when growing a hedge, there is bound to be an option that suits your gardens needs.

Small hedges

Low growing hedges are great for edging around paths, garden features and add another visual layer between the lawn and other high growing plants.

Buxus

Buxus is a popular choice when it comes to hedging. It has small leaves, allowing its foliage to grow compact and dense. This growing habit allows it to shaped and sculpted, making it an ideal edging and border plant as it can be sculpted to fit in all areas of the garden.

There are a few different varieties of Buxus available on the market. To see which is best for you and your garden, have a chat to your local garden centre.

Dwarf Nandina

Nandina is a small and compact plant with beautiful leaf colours year-round. In winter, there colour even becomes brighter and more vibrant! This is a hardy plant that can survive heat and low temperatures. There are a few different varieties of Nandina available, with different colourings and growing habits.

Larger hedges

Larger hedges are a great to help block out wind and even noise! They also help provide more functional benefits in creating separate areas within a garden and privacy from neighbours and your street.

Lily Pilly

Lily Pillies are popular option when it comes to larger hedges. As they are native plants they do grow best in the Australian environment. In summer, Lily Pillies will produce a bright white flower that will later grow into a berry. Their thick glossy foliage makes them a great option for hedging. 

Murraya

Murraya is another popular hedging option across Australia. Its white flowers have an orange scent and bloom in late summer early autumn. Their flowers can also appear after periods of heavy rainfall. Murraya has a dense growing habit and has dark green foliage, perfect for providing a privacy screen.

For more information on choosing the best plants for your garden, have a chat to your local garden centre.

To find contact details for your local accredited turf supplier visit here.

Lawn Solutions Australia is committed to supplying the best quality turf year-round.

Over winter, warm-season turf varieties can struggle to maintain their green colouring throughout the cooler months in some areas. Our network of turf suppliers overcome these challenges in a variety of ways.

Our suppliers use a combination of frost blankets, pre-emergent herbicides, liquid nutrients and ColourGuard Plus to keep their turf both looking and performing great over the cooler months.

Frost blankets

Turf farms commonly use frost blankets to help avoid turf from becoming frost affected and damaged. When turf does become damaged by frost, it causes the leaf blade to lose colour.

Frost blankets work by reducing the amount of cold air the turf is exposed to. These blankets create a pocket of air that is heated from the soil underneath. The blankets will sit on top of the plant, protecting the grass underneath. So, when frost does come on top of the blanket, it will slowly melt on top of the blanket, protecting the turf underneath.

These blankets help reduce the impact of frost damage on the leaf of the grass. They also help speed up the recovery time of damaged turf when heading into the warmer months.

Our suppliers who are impacted by frost use frost blankets to help avoid frost damage.

Pre-emergent weed control

All of Lawn Solutions Australia’s turf suppliers are AusGAP certified growers. This helps ensure that all turf sold from our turf suppliers will be true to type and visually free from weeds, pests, and diseases.

To help ensure this, pre-emergent products like Oxa-Pro are regularly used by our suppliers to help prevent the growth of weeds.

Pre-emergent herbicides target weeds before they appear. They work by forming a barrier at the soil level to stop the germination of any new seedlings, without affecting the root growth. These herbicides are commonly used just before germination happens. Germination will occur when the average temperature of the soil reaches below 14°.

AusGAP Certified turf suppliers can promise weed free turf. Only Lawn Solutions Australia turf suppliers can only guarantee this.

Liquid Nutrients for quality turf in winter

Lawn Solutions turf suppliers use liquid nutrients. Depending on our supplier’s location and climate, the formulation that they use will change to suit their growing conditions.

ColourGuard Plus 

ColourGuard Plus is a natural grass pigment that will instantly improve the colour of grass. Lawn Solutions Australia turf suppliers apply ColourGuard Plus to turf sold during the cooler months. This helps ensure our customers receive green grass all year round.

Warm season turf varieties do lose their colour during the cooler months as they are unable to absorb enough sunlight to produce chlorophyll. Many think that this discolouration means that the lawn is dead or is in bad health. However, the turf is simply sitting dormant and will have its colour return once it can produce chlorophyll when the weather begins to warm up again.

This is the same case for our turf suppliers and the grass that customers receive in the cooler months. To ensure the grass supplied is green when it is delivered to our customers, turf that is to be sold is sprayed with ColourGuard Plus.

ColourGuard Plus is also available for the domestic market in smaller quantities. It is great to use if you are wanting to instantly improve the appearance of your lawn. ColourGuard Plus is a permanent colourant, so it will disappear as the grass leaf grows.

You can find out more information on using ColourGuard Plus here.

Lawn Solutions Australia Turf Suppliers will provide quality turf in winter

Lawn Solutions Australia turf suppliers can guarantee the turf you receive will be of the highest quality. All our turf suppliers are AusGAP certified. This guarantees your lawn will be true to type and has been monitored for quality, to be free of weeds, pests, and diseases.

Find your local Lawn Solutions Turf Supplier here.

Everything is getting a ‘smart’ upgrade these days. From smart phones, smart cars, smart tv’s, to smart homes… you name it the list goes on. But what about a smart lawn? Smart technologies are impacting every facet of our daily lives and the way we look after grass is no exception.

There are many new gadgets designed to take the guess work out of your lawn care and turf maintenance programs and they are now commonly integrated with smart phone applications.

Here’s some smart lawn gadget ideas to help you get a smarter lawn…

Smart Turf Irrigation Systems

There are Wi-Fi irrigation control systems that integrate with smart home products for your home. These systems adjust watering based on internet sourced weather data. This helps to ensure your lawn receives the right amount of water, providing significant water savings as you are not over-watering. Many of these systems also allow remote access via an app. This allows you to monitor and manage your system from your phone, tablet or laptop while you are away from home.

Orbit B-Hyve Tap Timer with Wi-Fi Hub

Smart Soil Moisture Sensors

Another thing you can now track via an app is the moisture level of your soil. By installing a soil sensor, you can transmit information to an application where you can monitor moisture levels and temperature data. This will help you to know when your grass needs additional watering or help you reduce your water usage.

Holman Smart Moisture Sensor 

Smart Pest Control Sensors

Whether it be kangaroos, rabbits or some other pest wreaking havoc on your lawn, there are new smart ways to fight back. There are security cameras now available as part of your home’s security system with motion sensors and night vision. These cameras can be set up to communicate with your smart irrigation system to turn on at night whenever they detect movement. Remember though, these sensors won’t know the difference between you and a pest. So make sure it is disabled if you plan on staying dry while using your lawn!

Motion Activated Sprinkler – Garden Sentinel

Robot Lawn Mowers

These have been around a little while now, but there are always new and improved versions hitting the market. They work much the same way the robot vacuums work, by mapping an area either with sensors, GPS or an electronic boundary. Rather than vacuuming though, as an autonomous robot for mowing, these machines have the ability to cut grass instead. Husqvarna’s latest model works within an electronic fence created by a boundary wire and has specialised sensors to allow it to move around obstacles. When the battery starts to run low, it will return to a charging station. There are even Husqvarna models that give you the ability, via an app, to control its operational hours so you can have your lawn available whenever you need it.

Husqvarna Automower

Smart Weather Stations

Devices like the Holman Aspect Wifi Analyst Weather Station can connect to the web and deliver weather information for your backyard to anywhere in the globe. How smart is that?

Holman Aspect Wifi Analyst Weather Station

The Smart Grass

What would a list of different smart lawn gadgets be without the ultimate smart grass variety – TifTuf Hybrid Bermuda (Couch Grass). This grass in itself is a smart gadget. TifTuf is the only grass in Australia to be awarded the Smart Approved WaterMark.

TifTuf Hybrid Bermuda is the product of almost 25 years of research and development from one of the world’s leading turf grass breeders, the University of Georgia. This grass has been hand selected out of almost 30,000 different Bermuda varieties. TifTuf shows superior qualities in drought tolerance, shade tolerance, wear tolerance and winter colour whilst at the same time maintaining excellent turf quality. Find out more here.

Surfactants (Adjuvants)

An adjuvant is a substance used to modify chemical or physical properties. There are two main categories of adjuvants, but in this article, we are referring to the type known as activator and spray modifiers, specifically the product group known as surfactants.

Why are surfactants sometimes required when applying herbicides or pesticides?

Surfactants are used with herbicide or pesticide solutions in order to reduce the surface tension of the water it is applied with. There is an increase in the ‘spreadability’ of the water, with an increase in the surface area that the solution can cover. In contrast, if you were to apply just water when applied to a waxy surface like that of a weed, it will bead instead of spreading outwards. By adding a surfactant to the water, the molecules are spread outwards as the surfactant molecule is attracted in opposite directions. Rather than being inwardly attracted cohesively it becomes outwards attracted. The surfactant is now the link between what would normally be considered non-compatible materials.

Essentially you end up with a substance that has made water wetter!

Instead of the solution simply beading up and dispersing away, it spreads across the surface of the target material. This will improve the efficacy of the product being applied, ensuring it contacts and adheres to a greater surface area for penetration and improved efficacy.

What is a surfactant?

You can get a better idea of what a surfactant does by breaking down the origins of the word itself. Surfactant is a shortened form of the phrase ‘surface active agent’. They are soluble in water and are able to reduce water tension. Without going too deep into the science of why this is, the molecules within the surfactant are known as long molecules and have a head and a tail. The head is attracted to water (water-loving or hydrophilic). The tail is attracted to oil, grease and dirt (oil-loving or hydrophobic). So, one end is water-soluble while the other is oil soluble.

The most common types of surfactants are called Carboxylates. These comprise carboxylate salts, like Sodium stearate. Sodium stearate can be found in the most commonly available household ‘surfactant’ item, soap.

What weeds are best to target with the addition of a surfactant?

Target weeds that have a waxy coating or surface that is likely to bead easily upon application are the ideal weed types to look at targeting with a surfactant. Weeds like paspalum, nutgrass or broadleaf weeds like cudweed are ideal candidates for the addition of a surfactant when treating.

What surfactant do I use and how?

In most domestic homeowner situations, the easiest and most accessible surfactant to use is dishwashing liquid. As mentioned earlier, soap contains the surfactant Sodium stearate. Liquid dishwashing liquid can be added to a tank mix of the herbicide or pesticide being applied and mixed with water. A few drops in a 5L pressure sprayer or knapsack should be enough to help ensure that an efficient application is achieved. Many products will advise to use specific surfactants or products designed to achieve the best results with their products. Results after application cannot be guaranteed if using a dishwashing liquid or alternative option with your tank mix that goes against the label instructions.

When determining what surfactant to use it is also important to consider the product that you are tank mixing it with. There are many herbicides that have specific requirements and labels recommend that they be applied with a specifically formulated surfactant or adjuvant to best ensure the success rate of the application. Be sure to read the label thoroughly before applying in case a specific surfactant is required. It is important to consider the effect that any addition to a tank mix will make to the ability for a product to perform as it says it will. If you are unsure, contact the product manufacturer directly for advice.

Some examples of turf surfactant products:

Manta Ray Surfactant

ProForce Manta Ray Surfactant is a multi-purpose aquatic friendly adjuvant which is composed of natural surfactants and penetrants derived from soybean oils. These are combined with propionic acid to produce a penetrant, surfactant, acidifier for use with herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, foliar fertilizers and plant growth regulators.

Agral Spray Adjuvant

Agral is a versatile non-ionic organic surfactant. It is the recommended surfactant to use with the range of products produced by Syngenta.

Pro-Film 904

Pro-Film 904 is a unique, high quality multipurpose surfactant designed to enhance performance of plant protection products. Provides unsurpassed sticking, improves penetration of systemic products. Is soft on turf and forms a film around the plant limiting water loss and helps reduce odour.

Driftex

Premium surfactant for addition to pesticides to reduce spray drift and to increase rain fastness period.

Activator

Activator Surfactant is a premium non-ionic rainfast wetting agent with low foaming qualities.

LI700

LI700 Surfactant can be used as an acidifying and penetrating mix, reducing alkaline hydrolysis. It will assist with the uptake of systemic herbicides and assists in management of spray droplet size.

Pulse

Pulse is a non-ionic organo silicone super wetter that improves the spread of spray droplets on leaves by up to 13 times more than standard surfactants. This superior coverage allows thorough penetration and translocation of certain herbicides used for hard-to-control brush and woody weeds.

If you are looking to get the best and most effective use of the products you are using, make sure you read the label thoroughly and add a surfactant if recommended to do so. If you are unsure of best practice, check with the product manufacturer directly for advice specific to their product.

For more lawn care advice, check out our other blogs here.