Lawn Care Tips
Mowing
• Regular mowing is critical in maintaining your lawns health and helps keep weed at a minimum.
• Different grass varieties need to be cut at different heights. Finer leaf grasses such as couch grass perform well when mowed between 15mm and 30mm. For other warm season grasses, such as Buffalo grass, it is best to mow a little higher between 30mm and 50mm. Grass that is in the shade should also be mowed at a slightly higher rate.
• Avoid mowing when your grass is wet as in can cause excessive grass clipping left behind causing problems with regrowth and health undergrowth
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Top Dressing
• Top dressing lawns should generally only be carried out for two reasons – to level out uneven lawns and to add nutrients that the lawn may be lacking.
• You want to put down between 5mm and 10mm of top dressing. Using a soil leveller or the back of a plastic rake, work the top dressing into the turf so the grass leaf is showing and can receive sunlight.
• Do not put down more than 10mm of topdressing as you will risk smothering the grass.
• Timing wise, it is ideal to top dress after an aeration.
• When top dressing, you want to try and match the existing soil composition as best you can. However, if you have a very clay-based soil, it is best to apply washed river/pit sand to the lawn after aerating. This will help change the soil structure thus improving drainage and the growth of healthy grass.
• It is very important to give the lawn a watering after top dressing.
Gypsum
• Gypsum can be used to improve the physical condition of clay-based soils.
• Soil particles are brought together into clumps enhancing water penetration and root development.
• Gypsum is a natural product that can be applied twice yearly, at any time of the year.
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Watering
• Heavy, infrequent watering encourages deeper root growth making your lawn stronger and more drought tolerant.
• Water your lawn heavily once every 3 or 4 days, unless of course we are receiving adequate rainfall.
• It is generally recommended in Spring & Summer to give your lawn between 12mm- 20mm with each watering. The exact amount will be dependent on weather conditions and the amount of rainfall received that week. In Winter, it is generally recommended to reduce your watering to 7mm-12mm once per week. Again, this will be dependent on weather conditions and rainfall.
• The best time to water your lawn is early in the morning after sunrise.
• Do not water at night time as this can lead to fungal disease.
• Do not water during the day when it is too hot as the water will be evaporated by the heat of the sun.
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