Dear Dave, First of all you need to identify what type of soil you have this
will be instrumental in determining how much water to apply and how you
apply it. For example if you water sandy soil it will drain through very
quickly so it needs to be watered often. If you have clay soil it will need
to be watered slowly for a long time or the water will run off.

It may take 3 hours of watering to get a good soaking and ensure you bring
the water level up. There is a great technical book about soils, watering
etc called Gardening Down Under available from Florilegium books in St Johns
Road Forest Lodge (GLEBE). May also be available from Royal Botanic Gardens
bookshop.

It also talks about evapotranspiration, mulching etc. Ideally you want to
get long roots on your lawn which you achieve by a good soaking a 2-3 times
a week (depending on soil type). The long roots and height of grass (approx
5cm) will ensure that your grass becomes more drought resistant and won't
start to die off on a hot day.

Thatching & coring is also important you can hire thatchers & corers to
ensure that your lawn is kept in optimum condition lawn in optimum condition
is necessary because you can effectively shade out weeds and minimise their
chance of striking seeds on bare patches.

Yes do test your soil pH. All the best with it. Heather.

"Dave" wrote in message
...
Howdy... looking for some friendly advice.

Around this time last year I laid a Sir Walter turf lawn in my backyard
and
it took off fantastically well - particularly with all the rain we
received
in January/February.

This year the lawn is not going so well however - I live in Sydney and
have
not had any reasonable rain for at least 4 or 5 months.

The subsoil for the lawn is effectively a small amount of topsoil on top
of
a sandstone shelf. In some places in the yard the sandstone would be only
20-30cm or so beneath the surface. In others there is a few metres.

During winter the lawn browned off a bit, so early spring I decided to
give
it a good treatment to try to bring it on again. I watered (every couple
of
days for an hour or so) and fertilized (using "Buffalo blend" as
recommended
by the grower).

This seemed to get the lawn greening up a bit, but as soon as I stopped
watering for a few days or we had a hot day (30 odd degrees) some patches
in
the lawn start to "frizzle". The leaves curl up and look dry and start to
go
white. Give it some more water at it comes back... Interestingly, the
patches do not seem to conincide with where there is only a small amount
of
topsoil.

Now, with the lawn, the runners are pretty much on the surface - 30/40mm
(my
mowing height) below the tops of the blades of the grass (I assume this is
normal?) but it was suggested to me I might try a light topdressing to
bury
the runners and provide protection for the roots.

As an experiment I topdressed half the lawn - bottom line is that the top
dressing doesn't seem to have any affect on what I am seeing with regard
the
frizzling or indeed on the growth of the lawn - it happens on both the
topdressed and the non-topdressed part of the lawn.

It pretty much seems obvious to me that given the shallow and sandy
subsoil
and the lack of rain, unless I water pretty much every second or third
day,
I won't be able to stop this frizzling from happening... but does anyone
have any other ideas?

Could I be missing certain elements/is what I am seeing a sympton of a Ph
problem in the soil? Is it worth getting the ph tested?

I'd like to keep the lawn soft under foot as I have a toddler who uses the
lawn daily.

Thanks for any advice.

Ciao,
Dave.