Lawn care advice needed

[Speedster]

I want to get my lawn going again after winter . Its Kikuyu but I noticed there are patches of clover growing amongst the grass. How do I get rid of the clover?

This week I got a few bags of lawn dressing and laid that down and gave the grass a good water.

Superlawnweeder is the sorcerery you are looking for

 

[Fuma]

You don't eat grass. It should be illegal to have lawn imo. Just a waste of water.

You can create a food forest in that amount of space. I started salivating when I saw you have 1000sqm of space. I'm not a gardener but I think with more research and hard work, (with failures along the way), you can create a lush fruit and veg forest in a few years.
Maybe I have been watching too much gardening/homesteading channels on YouTube since lockdown and I have been obsessed with it.

I will be moving to a new property myself in a few months time and I will have about 300sqm+ of garden space to work with

 

[bwana]

After years of battling with the local climate and drought I threw in the towel and laid gravel over lockdown.

 

[RedViking]

I'm thinking this,

Loosen all the soil. Remove everything on top.

Maybe remove 100-200mm of soil?


Go grab a bunch of environment friendly cardboard boxes. Cover all the soil. Everything underneath the boxes will die.

Then fill up with good soil and plant your grass.

Water it from Jojo tank.

Done.

 

[RedViking]

@RonSwanson why you laugh at me.

 

[RonSwanson]

@RonSwanson why you laugh at me.

It's not at you, it's at your hillarious plan. What exactly are you trying to achieve?

 

[RedViking]

It's not at you, it's at your hillarious plan. What exactly are you trying to achieve?

Growing some green grass.

 

[krycor]

Artificial grass for the win... Everything is fake these days anyway, might as well

Size & cost for x years before replacement vs irrigation & maintenance(dressing annually & monthly mow) cost for x years.

For medium to small lawns the break even is about 2-4yrs last I checked.

Wrt OP.. plant some grass seeds. Now is the right time esp if in Gauteng, WC last month.. basically you need to fork the area, toss some seed, fertilizer/compost and/or dressing.

Keep it wet(why season makes a difference also considering frost which kills saplings inland) and it will grow. Choose grass pending conditions (no sun, too much sun, drought) and off you go.. and type of soil/fertilizer depends on soil conditions.

Dressing:

Filling dead/bare areas:

PS. If you have kikuyu grass know that before summer typically end of winter/start of spring you need to do dressing at the minimum else your grass starts to look bad.

 

[krycor]

I'm a lawn guy - nothing beats walking barefoot on a lush, green lawn.

To add my 2c to the above, water generously, but infrequently. You're looking to water about 25mm once per week. And then add a lawn fertilizer - builders had a 7:1:3 going for R120 / 10kg which covers about 500m2.

Since budget is an issue I'd hold off on lawn dressing, scarifying and the like until next season. That way you get one season to see what you need to do before throwing money at it.

The other key is mowing. Assuming kikuyu, mow twice a week at about 3cm.

I’d not sacrifice it entirely.. just do it very sparingly. It will still look better than nothing.

 

[RonSwanson]

Growing some green grass.

So why remove 200mm of topsoil? That's valuable stuff. And the use of "environment friendly cardboard boxes"? There are many weeds that flourish in shade, as there are grasses. Even if they are covered, if they have had a chance to seed, they will grow. Grasses such as Kikuyu have deep roots, and if you want to get rid of it for good, you will struggle.

If you want to kill everything and start afresh, then use a non-discriminatory herbicide like Glyphosate, it's cheap and effective, kills everything that is green. You can then either burn or remove the dried grass / weeds, loosen the soil and plant the grass of your choice. If it's kikuyu, you will need more than one application, in Winter, because Spring is far too late.

 

[phoneJunky]

I would first work on my soil. When I moved into my place I got a bakkie load with of some good soil and spread it over the grass and the patchy areas. After 2 weeks you can put 7:1:4 on repeat this every 6 weeks while you are in your rainy season. So now for Gauteng, March for Western Cape. If the patchy areas are too big, you can plant additional. I think you can also still plant some seeds, but this is already a bit late. I planted seeds late and it still worked.

I would also sort out the irrigation system first as it isn't that expensive as you might think. That you can even do in stages with a manual tap first and then after some time you can install solenoids and and an outside irrigation system. I would also lay the cables while the grass is still not in good condition. But that said, I would get someone to install it for you to make sure that the water quantities are correct to stop other nasty side effects (clovers etc)

 

[krycor]

I would first work on my soil. When I moved into my place I got a bakkie load with of some good soil and spread it over the grass and the patchy areas. After 2 weeks you can put 7:1:4 on repeat this every 6 weeks while you are in your rainy season. So now for Gauteng, March for Western Cape. If the patchy areas are too big, you can plant additional. I think you can also still plant some seeds, but this is already a bit late. I planted seeds late and it still worked.

I would also sort out the irrigation system first as it isn't that expensive as you might think. That you can even do in stages with a manual tap first and then after some time you can install solenoids and and an outside irrigation system. I would also lay the cables while the grass is still not in good condition. But that said, I would get someone to install it for you to make sure that the water quantities are correct to stop other nasty side effects (clovers etc)

Installing a drip irrigation system would be the best. If we ever stay and buy a house that or artificial turf is best.