Things are really starting to happen in gardens in October, new growth is showing everywhere particularly in our lawns.
Most of the lawns we have in Adelaide such as couch, kikuyu and buffalo, are what are known as “summer” grasses. They are basically dormant through the colder winter months and now with a bit of warmth are starting to put on new growth. There are a few things that we need to do now that will help them along.
If you haven’t already fed your lawn don’t delay. There are a number of fertilisers available to cater for all lawn types. The most important things to remember are that fertiliser should be applied when the soil is moist and then watered in straight away. If we get rain or reasonable showers you can time your fertilising around them, but try not to leave fertiliser on the lawn dry, it will burn the leaves of your grass, and while the lawn will recover it will set it back.
If your lawn has become compacted or you had wet spots visible in winter you can now consider aerating the lawn and applying some gypsum to help “open up” the soil. Aerating is easily done with a digging fork, working the tines into the soil and wriggling them around, or you can hire aerators from hire companies. Gypsum can be applied after aerating or at the same time as feeding, water it in and it will begin to soften hard compacted soils.
As you will soon need to mow take the time to check your mower over to make sure it’s ready to go. If the blades are dull you can either sharpen or replace them, sharp blades cut cleaner and cause less damage to lawns. Keep the height setting up a bit higher now as well, a bit of extra height will help the lawn to retain moisture and helps to smother weeds too.