Establishing a lawn
 

Do you need a lawn for small children to play on? You could save much
water, expense and work by not having a lawn. There are alternatives.

David

Do you think that establishing a large garden without lawn is cheap? I
wouldn't.

I didn't say it was cheap to establish - nor is it. But choosing based on
establishment cost alone is short sighted. Maybe it would have been clearer
if I had said:

"In the long run you could save much water, expense and work by not having a
lawn."

When I had small children I signed up for the full; fertilise, weed, water,
mow, trim, rake, sweep routine. As soon as the playgym and pigtails went so
did the lawn. The transition cost some money and effort but saved much in
the long run.

David

Establishing a lawn
 

It depends on what type of lawn you put in. A grassed area isn't
necessarily expensive to put it.
You can make the sky the limit by doing a mcdonalds type lawn.
Everything stripped, prepared and lawns rolled on in strips. Bingo, many
hundreds/ thousands later. No thanks.
The old clean rake and scatter fertiliser seeds on reasonable soil works
for most of us. Start up costs a bag of seed some labour and
fertilisers. Total cost less then $100. Then water carefully. But not
with this drought. Not allowed....
Staycalm wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
"~Ellie~" wrote in message
...
Hi! I've decided to start working on our garden... at the moment it's a
big bare block of dirt, with weeds starting to rear their nasty little
heads everywhere.

I'm attempting to grow a blue couch lawn from seed, one section at a
time, due to financial constraints.

I have just one question to begin with, but I'm sure many more will
follow

Can I use grey water (washing machine, shower) to water the lawn as it
germinates, or will there be too much phospherous, etc in the water? It
has already got a lawn starter fertiliser on the soil.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

Do you need a lawn for small children to play on? You could save much
water, expense and work by not having a lawn. There are alternatives.

David

Do you think that establishing a large garden without lawn is cheap? I
wouldn't. Despite all other issues like drought, etc I would have thought
that lawn would be reasonably cheap to setup, especially if you need to do a
large block.
We have planned only one patch of lawn and it's in the backyard. The grey
water from the laundry seems to keep it going well. The front will be garden
beds with low water use plants, path and driveway. Not cheap to establish.
The backyard is almost complete though.

Liz

How much beer does it take to drown slugs?
 

"George.com" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message

or
derris dust and cornflakes dampened with a bit of beer or water.

tell me more about derris dust & cornflakes with beer.

I've been off trying to find my gardening notbooks and I can't as they
aren't in the drawer where they should be. And now you ask, it does seem
like an odd mix for snails. I wonder whether I misremembered one of the
ingredients. Blast! Now I'm going to have to do a hunt for those
notebooks!

How much beer does it take to drown slugs?
 

"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...
"George.com" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message

or
derris dust and cornflakes dampened with a bit of beer or water.

tell me more about derris dust & cornflakes with beer.

I've been off trying to find my gardening notbooks and I can't as they
aren't in the drawer where they should be. And now you ask, it does
seem
like an odd mix for snails. I wonder whether I misremembered one of the
ingredients. Blast! Now I'm going to have to do a hunt for those
notebooks!

Found the notebooks and the other ingredient is molasses.

yes, and....

rob

How much beer does it take to drown slugs?
 

"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...
"George.com" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message

or
derris dust and cornflakes dampened with a bit of beer or water.

tell me more about derris dust & cornflakes with beer.

I've been off trying to find my gardening notbooks and I can't as they
aren't in the drawer where they should be. And now you ask, it does seem
like an odd mix for snails. I wonder whether I misremembered one of the
ingredients. Blast! Now I'm going to have to do a hunt for those
notebooks!

Found the notebooks and the other ingredient is molasses.

Establishing a lawn
 

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...


Do you need a lawn for small children to play on? You could save much
water, expense and work by not having a lawn. There are alternatives.

David

Do you think that establishing a large garden without lawn is cheap? I
wouldn't.

I didn't say it was cheap to establish - nor is it. But choosing based on
establishment cost alone is short sighted. Maybe it would have been
clearer
if I had said:

"In the long run you could save much water, expense and work by not having
a
lawn."

When I had small children I signed up for the full; fertilise, weed,
water,
mow, trim, rake, sweep routine. As soon as the playgym and pigtails went
so
did the lawn. The transition cost some money and effort but saved much in
the long run.

i don't entirely disagree, but i will point out that the section of my yard
which has grass (i don't think it's quite a "lawn" ;-) is the ONLY area
that: 1: never needs watering, ever 2: has few weeds 3: needs virtually no
maintenance at this point (someone mows it from time to time, & the chooks
eat it for greens when there's not much else available - so it's actually
useful too).

many grasses are low-maintenance, don't use much water, and look just as
good as other plants. buffalo (for example) doesn't need supplementary
watering & doesn't even grow for half the year (as many of them don't),
making "maintenance" virtually a non-issue.

i'm not wildly in favour of lawns per se (for one thing, they are visually
boring), but i simply cannot muster the outrage about them that some people
can. there are "good" and "bad" lawns for any situation - like any other
sort of plant, it's a question of putting something in that suits the
conditions & the people involved. the very idea of all the work
_establishing_ a decent lawn really should put anyone off g, because it's
kind of mad, but care of a lawn won't necessarily be any more
tiresome/expensive/whatnot than sprawling plants & groundcovers.

lastly, if people use their greywater, there's no lack of water whatsoever
for a yard of ordinary (or even quite large) size, regardless of what one is
growing. all other things being equal, a well-watered garden will save your
house from bushfire; and if bushfire is a risk, lawn is a better bet than a
bed of dry natives that will go up like christmas.

(i think that last bit might be All About Me g, but it's an example of
lawn being far superior to garden beds full of "waterwise" plants in some
situations).
kylie