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To have a great lawn it is important to understand the important building blocks to create the beautiful lawn.

MOWING:

Such a simple thing, but so often abused by lack of knowledge leading to serious quality degradation of the lawn.

  • NEVER CUT TOO LOW: It will stunt the grass, reducing root depth. Low cutting reduces turf density, increases moss, weeds and bare areas. It will also die easier in hot dry times due to its stunted shallow root system. Kiwis like to cut lawns so low , that they mow the lawn in a dust cloud. I suspect they do this because the grass grows slower (of course it does as the turf is half dead) and so it will be longer before they mow again. 
  • Keep your mowing height up, at first it may feel strange until you realize it produces a better lawn that looks good year round. There is no ideal cut height however as it depends on grass variety, soil type, how shady the lawn is and if the turf has high or low traffic across it.
  • CUTTING PATTERN: People often cut their grass exactly the same way each time. This results in mower wheel ruts building up over a period of time. Apart from looking bad and being bad when you twist your ankle in the rut, there is another problem. As the mower is sunk down in the rut, the cutting blades go lower and end up scalping the grass. Apart from severely injuring the grass plant by doing this, the area becomes bare and the moss and weeds start (remember seeing lines of moss in your lawn, this is the cause). 
  • To over come this, mow in a different angle each time you mow. Also ensure when going in the same direction, mover the mower over 5cm to prevent rut development.
  • KEEP YOUR MOWER BLADES SHARP : Sharp blades do a clean slice through the grass blade, dull blades smash the blade resulting in a bruised jagged edge. A clean cut will heal quickly and will not lose water quickly. The jagged cut from a dull blade, as well as looking bad to the eye, takes a long time to heal inviting disease to enter the plant and it will cause the grass to loose a lot of water by evaporation in summer resulting in heat stress and die back.
  • TYPE OF MOWER: The 2 common types are rotary mowers and the less common reel mower. 
  • Rotary mowers tend to be cheap, light weight, easy to maintain and easy to operate. But they dont give such a good cut as a reel mower and they are prone to wheel rutting
  • Reel mowers are expensive, heavy, hard to operate and hard and costly to maintain. They also need a much smoother surface to operate on than rotary mowers. However they give a far superior cut and dont cause wheel rutting.
  • LAWN STRIPING : We all love that amazing striping on a lawn, but how is it done? It is done with a reel mower which has a roller on it which rolls the grass in one direction. When the mower comes back in the return direction, it is rolling the grass in the opposite direction. The light reflects off the grass in a different way between the 2 different grass directions causing the amazing colour difference. 
  • However the look is difficult to achieve. Different varieties of grass are more or less suitable for striping. Also the height of cut of the grass has a great effect on the effectivness of the stripping, as does the temperature and soil dryness. To achieve consistent highly defined stripping requires frequent mowing in exactly the same direction on each stripe.
  • SHADE AND HEIGHT OF CUT: Shaded areas of lawns often struggle to keep density as their leave blades do less photosynthesizing due to reduced sunlight. Often shaded parts of the lawn are cut at a higher height to increase leaf blade area which then increased plant health. This difference in height is often cut as an attractive lawn collar.

TURF TYPE SELECTION

When growing a new lawn, it is important to select a correct turf type for the location.

  • Is your lawn irrigated or is it a dry location?
  • Is your lawn in a shaded or sunny or mixed light location?
  • Is your lawn going to be a fine turf show lawn, or a high use lawn (ie high wear) or is it going to be a low or high maintenance lawn ($$s and time)?
  • Is your lawn in a warmer area of NZ such as north of north island, or does it experience cold winters? 
These are all factors to take into account

LAWN CONSTRUCTION

The type of construction of your lawn can vary tremendously in cost, however the higher cost lawn tends to produce the higher quality lawn.

Often a lawn made on the cheap is just some turf or seed put out on an existing lawn. This is often destined for failure as the seed and turf often dont grow in properly.    

Some elements of construction for consideration are soil type, soil fineness, soil levelness and compaction, as well as spraying off and removal of previous turf before construction begins.


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