Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My front lawn has always suffered throughout the years i have owned this place and from what my neighbours tell me from the 7 years previous it has done the same.

I have fertilised, watered, aerated, transplanted, top dressed, you name it i have tried it pretty much..

So i was thinking of digging it all out down to a depth of about 200mm, adding how ever many cubes of soil conditioner and water crystals, tilling it all in together, levelling it and putting down

Sir Walter Soft Leaf Buffalo

Any thoughts?
Any One have it already?

Better get rid of the lawn and put an aquaponic system there then it will always be green

Is your soil sandy, loamy or clay, just to know what type of amendments it will need. A soil test kit from a garden center should also tell you ph, and whatever fertilizers it may need. Also if your soil is iron deficient. In the us the county agent can tell you a lot about your soil, Not sure what gov. intity you would get it touch with in Au.
My soil is clay, soggy root rot when wet and cracking when dry. I brought in a dump truck load of sand and a load of top soil just to grow a dirt garden. I have a 6 hp rear tine tiller and 9 hp chipper shredder and I would mulch over the soil after planting every season and till the mulch in to add humus at end of the season. And start again. I also added a lot of gypsum to the soil. Takes the stickyness out of the clay and improves drainage.
Ultimately knowing what you have and what you need is a must if you want long term success.

If this is truly a Buffalo grass we have that here in Texas. Assuming its a similar strain of grass.... The grass will self seed as we see it everywhere here. But the thing you need to keep in mind, you don't mow it. It peaks out at 8-12 inches and that's how you leave it. So if you want a lawn that looks like a pool table this won't be to your liking.

If you do mow it you lose the hot weather tolerance of the species. It stunts it, demands more water, etc. You also lose the self seeding as well as you chopped the seed heads off.

Have you tried lime?

Often Perth soils (Sand in many suburbs) tend to go acidic and also maybe try some soil wetter as they also tend to go hydrophobic.

Do this, soil prep is paramount, I put down Palmetto (basically the same as Sir Walter but with less PR spin so buy what ever is cheaper) and did the above and have had great success, soft, green, fairly shade tolerent and hard wearing but put the effort into soil prep frist.

PM me if you want a cheap source of Palmetto, you will have to pick up yourself from Bullsbrook and pay cash to get the special price

Our neighbours have it, looks excellent, but cost the bomb, and did lots of prep as you described.
They use one of those reel type mowers, and it comes up a treat.
The only down side I see is that it is very spongy to walk on, I like the harder surface for the backyard cricket!
My preference is the Kikuyu type, very invasive, but that also means it grows absolutely anywhere, even had a runner take hold in a gravel path!

To keep the cost down I would look into runners (or bags of shredded grass, same thing), much cheaper, and after a few months, looks the same with that type of invasive grass. Do the same prep as for roll-on, and then just scatter the runners around and stomp in with the double plugga.

If you do decice on ripping up and replacing, make sure you install sub surface irrigation..

I roundup the front lawn and feed the back lawn to the chooks. I don't spend any time on mowing my lawn(whats left after the chooks) I lay cardboard boxes down and mulch over the top. Lots of moisture and the trees love it. If I had kids I might put in a small square of the stuff but its more like a green cancer that used to take up a lot of my time. I say keep it small and more a a feature then the cost will be cut and the amount of time and money you could save on keeping it going. There are also some ground covers that are nice. Penny royal will give you a peppermint smell when you walk over it.

Call C1... he'll not only have the area laid and covered in a day... but he can probably recommend the right colour as well ...

I'm very happy with my sir walter. We water it with rain water via sub surface irrigation. You can see it in my thread about 2 months after it was laid.

Yep, I'm pretty much with Rupe, except I recommend artificial grass. Had a couch and a palmetto rolled out over 15 years and both had brown patches and irregular growth no matter what I did - sprinklers, sub-surface irrigation, lime, fertiliser - bloody everything.

Costs a bit up front, but artificial has;

- no mowing (petrol, maintenance, blades, mower, etc)
- no weeding
- no poisons
- no soil wetter
- no beetles
- not itchy if you lay on it
- doesn't invade other areas you don't want it to

If you want a living ground cover I strongly recommend lippia (lipia ?). Dichondra is nicer, but needs a lot of shade.