Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.
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The old image of an Aussie backyard with a mown lawn full of grassy weeds and a Hills Hoist stuck smack in the middle has thankfully changed over the years.
The clothesline, probably to its functionality detriment, has been discreetly moved aside.
The fence lines have been softened with shrubbery, and the lawns are often manicured to rival the local golf course.
Our backyards can play a huge part in the way we live, from safe play areas where kids and pets can run amok, to alfresco areas where we can sit back and enjoy our own piece of paradise.
Lawns play a major role in how these areas, and our front gardens, are viewed.
They can create the feeling of space and flow in the garden, determine its uses and dramatically soften and cool the area.
So it makes sense to put thought into the selection of the type of lawn you are going to grow to achieve the best results for situation.
Lawn types are roughly grouped into two types.
Warm climate grasses such as couch, buffalo and kikuyu, and cool climate grasses like fescue, bentgrass, ryegrass and Kentucky bluegrass.
All of these will grow in our area, some better than others, and they all have their own pros and cons.
However, a grass such as bentgrass, which makes a beautiful lawn, requires a lot of care and maintenance to keep it going and Kentucky bluegrass, also a nice lawn, seems to struggle in our long hot summers if not nurtured properly.
Warm grasses will go dormant in winter, they will slow in growth and lose their colour as winter progresses, going yellow or even brown as the cold kicks in.
They are a spreading grass, very drought tolerant and extremely hard wearing.
Cool grasses — clumping or individual plants — are green all-year-round. They require more care but can be quite tough and reasonably drought tolerant if grown correctly.
Kikuyu grass, liked by many but despised by most, is an extremely aggressive grass with a quick spread and strong invasive growth.
Ideally suited to large open areas where it can run wild and fill in with good cover.
Kikuyu seed is extremely fine and expensive. Because of this and its quick spread, it is usually sold mixed in with a cheaper establishment annual grass.
Sometimes with only as little as five per cent kikuyu seed.
Buffalo grass is grown by sods or sprigs rather than seed, as apart from being expensive and very fine, it is notoriously unreliable to germinate.
Even most commercial lawn growers revert to vegetative propagation rather than seed because of its reliability.
Most varieties of buffalo lawns can be quite itchy to lay or sit on — even some of the soft leaf varieties.
In our cold winters, all varieties of buffalo grass will brown off once the heavy frosts have covered them a few times.
My choice of the warm season grasses is a quality hybridised Bermuda couch.
Although related to the weedy type of couch, they have a much slower lateral spread, making them very controllable while still being hard-wearing.
They are extremely drought tolerant and hold their colour well into the winter, especially if given a feed in late autumn while there is still warmth in the ground.
In our area, couch lawns can only be sown during the warmer months from late October onwards, and can be sown in with a cheaper establishment grass to give you quick results.
Spyder fescue is a beautiful, green all-year-round cool climate grass with a fine leaf and a slow lateral creep as it matures, giving it reasonable durability to wear and tear.
If grown correctly without pandering to it too regularly with shallow watering, it can develop a relatively deep root system, making it quite resistant to our long, hot, dry summers.
Spyder fescue prefers a full sun to semi-shaded area for best growth, and by lifting the mower a notch or two, you will be rewarded with a soft lush lawn that is lovely to lay on and for the kids to play on.
Creeping red fescue is a shade-tolerant fine leaf slow-creeping grass that can cope reasonably well with growing in competition under the canopies of some larger trees.
The leaf is quite thin and sparse when it germinates, but comes into its prime at about 10 to 12 months old.
It can surprisingly withstand some wear and tear considering the conditions it sometimes grows in.
It can be blended in nicely with Spyder fescue or other grasses if you are trying to grow them on the edge of their shade tolerance.
Some of the newer hybrid varieties of perennial ryegrasses are just starting to really make their mark as ideal lawns for the home garden, either as a blended lawn or on its own.
Intense ryegrass is one of these — it has a dark green colour and a fine leaf.
Its main growing season is through the cooler months, but it does hold up well in the summer months.
It can tolerate high traffic and can be cut short if required, making it a good choice as an infill grass in a blended lawn.
In the Garden Centre we stock couch, Spyder fescue, creeping red fescue and intense perennial rye by the kilogram from our bulk bins.
Kikuyu is stocked in a blended packet mix along with packets of a few other lawn alternatives.
If you are establishing a new lawn from seed or repairing an existing one, call in and have a chat to us about what variety is going to best suit your requirements and how best to go about preparing and sowing your new lawn.
I will follow up in the next week or so with how to maintain your lawns in their best condition, the dos and don’ts of the different varieties and the common problems we get asked about.