Building Your Own Backyard Stadium

The crowd roars, the Mexican wave soars past and the players have entered the stadium! Ok, so you might not create this level of atmosphere, but there are certainly ways you can turn your backyard into the perfect space where competitive rivalries and future sporting stars are born. And it all starts with your lawn.

Where do you think the Marsh brothers and the Waugh brothers learnt to catch, bowl and hit a ball for six? Where did Tim Cahill first learn to score a goal off his head? It was in the Aussie backyard of course.

Here’s Lawn Solutions Australia’s tips on how to create your very own field of dreams.

• Start with a good foundation – If your soil base isn’t ideal, then your turf will struggle, and you won’t get a nice consistent and healthy lawn to play on. A loam soil is ideal and will have the right structure that your lawn needs.
• Choose a turf variety that will stand up to the vigour’s of backyard play – A hard wearing variety like Sir Walter will ensure you are spending less time repairing the lawn and more time enjoying it.
• Regular mowing and lawn care will be key in keeping the pitch up to playing standard – Keeping to a regular routine of mowing, watering and fertilising your lawn will keep it looking it’s best. A well-used lawn will become compacted over time and it is important that you also aerate the lawn at least once a year.
• Keep your lawn clear of obstacles and clutter that may cause injury – An unfortunate accident caused by a stray object could spell the end for your sporting career, so it’s best to remove any potential dangers.
• Bigger is better – Most sports require a lot of lawn space, so making the best use of your area is important.
• Want to go a step further and create your very own backyard stadium? A retaining wall or step makes for a great grandstand and will provide you with a safe spectator area.
• Give it some stripes! The reason stripes appear as they do, is as simple as the way the light reflects off the grass-blade. Blades bent towards you look dark, and blades bent the opposite way from you will appear lighter. All this means is you have to bend the grass blades opposing ways to create the stripe effect. If you don’t have a cylinder mower which has an in-built roller, after mowing with your rotary mower, you can use a roller to push the blades down by rolling in opposite directions. Whilst you may not get the look completely like they do on sporting grounds, you can get a similar effect that will still look great.

Check out the Lawn Solutions Australia lawn care page for more tips for your backyard pitch here.

To find your local turf supplier click here.