Posts tagged as: lawn care video

Lime & Gypsum (video)

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Lime and Gypsum

Gypsum, also known as calcium sulphate helps to break down and open up a clay soil allowing water, nutrients, air and lawn roots to penetrate into the soil more easily which is exactly what you want.

Now if you’ve got a clay soil it’s best to incorporate the gypsum into the soil before you spread your turf underlay mix. You can do this with a rotary hoe or you could just use a mattock for small areas.

For an existing lawn use a garden fork, push it in while moving it back and forth. Broadcast the required amount of lime over the area and water it into the soil. Now sometimes you lawn will get damaged from general wear and tear from pets or high traffic and even cold weather. Gypsum will help repair these areas.

Now always read the instructions on the bag buy as a general rule for light clay soils you need to apply 1 kg per square metre and for heavy clay soils you double it to 2 kg  per square metre.  And remember this too, gypsum is pH neutral, if you want to raise your soils pH you need to apply lime or dolomite.

Loving Your Lawn – Your Guide to the Perfect Aussie Lawn (video)

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G’day Nigel Ruck Here

I’d like to introduce my new book, Loving your Lawn, your guide to the perfect aussie lawn.

Created with the collective knowledge of 66 of the leading Australian Turf Growers, this book enables people throughout Australia to select, lay and maintain a lawn to suit their unique situation.

Published by Green Propeller and written by myself, this comprehensive lawn guide is a collaborative work. It’s the first book of its kind – aimed directly at all Australian lawn lovers and their lawns. Loving your Lawn combines the practical and localised knowledge of turf farmers across Australia with my hands-on knowledge and practical skills in both lawn and landscaping in general. Green Propeller’s creative, editorial and marketing team have crafted this knowledge into a unique fusion of how-to guides, practical information and outstanding photography — a book worthy of any coffee table, or lawn enthusiasts book shelf.

I hope you enjoy Loving your Lawn…

Measuring your lawn area / Lawn Installation (video)

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Measuring your lawn area / Lawn Installation

Lawns come in all shapes and sizes. Here are a few handy tips to help you work out how much soil and lawn you are going to need.

To measure the area of a square or rectangle, just multiply the length by the width.  To measure the area of a circle, multiply the radius by itself and then by 3.14.  To measure the area of a triangle, multiply the height by the base divided by 2. You will need 1 cubic metre per 10 square metres.  For irregular shapes it is a good idea to break the area down, measure those and then add them all up. And always remember to add about 5-10% extra on your order for contingencies.

The Importance of Soil pH for Your Lawn (video)

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 The Importance of Soil pH for Your Lawn

Sometimes you may find your lawn is not performing very well or not responding to fertiliser and this could be to do with the soils pH.

Now pH is a measure of acidity and alkalinity and Sir Walter lawns like to be in the 6 to 7.5 range for optimum performance. A pH in the right range of 6 to 7.5 is a bit like a plant with its mouth wide open, no food will go to waste here and it will all be eaten by the plant.

Adjusting the pH is easier on loamy and sandy soils than on heavy clays.  If your soil is a sandy loam and you need to raise the soil pH by one unit add the equivalent of 150g of liming material per square metre.  An adult handful is about 100g.

Heavy clay soils will require at least 250g to raise the pH by one unit.  A super fine grade of lime works quickest and generally costs around $8 a bag.

For an established lawn, which may be lacking magnesium, mix 50/50 lime and dolomite as the liming material to get the right balance of calcium and magnesium. Dolomite is only available in one grade and costs around $8 a bag.

After applying lime or dolomite make sure you water them well so that it moves into the soil. Testing the soil’s pH may seem like some mad scientific operation but it couldn’t be simpler with one of the soil pH test kits.  All you have to do is follow the instructions and it even tells you how to make the changes.

You can get all the lawn care products you will need here at our online Lawnstore.

Can I grow Sir Walter from seed? (video)

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Can I grow Sir Walter from seed?

A common question asked is – Can Sir Walter be grown from seed? And the answer is no. Most of your drought tolerant varieties cannot be grown from seed.  Sir Walter does produce a seed but it is male, sterile and not economically viable to be grown from.  Even at the turf farms, Sir Walter is grown from a cutting.

Your seed grown varieties tend to be cool season grasses like rye, fescue and blue grass.  And these in most parts of Australia fail as a home lawn because the country is basically too hot.  These grasses are much better suited to the cooler parts of Europe and upper North America.

How to stop your Sir Walter Lawn going to seed (video)

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Sir Walter Seed Heads

A lot of the Sir Walter growers get people ringing them up asking them, “Why has my Sir Walter lawn gone to seed?”

Now this is an excellent question, and it is part of your lawn’s survival mechanism in response to change, say sudden hot weather or lots of rain.

Now if your lawn is only going to seed during these sudden changes then you have nothing to worry about.  But if your lawn is constantly in seed then you probably have some issues with your soil and you need to take some remedial action such as fertilising and top dressing to really beef up that lawn again.

On this video out at the Turf farm you can see a really good example of this with two sections side by side.  The first section has recently been fertilised and it is beautiful, lush and green. The second section is exactly the same lawn but hasn’t been fertilised, it is a lighter colour and has gone to seed.

You get some good fertiliser on the second section and it will be lush and green and seedless just like the Sir Walter next door.