Losh's New House Build

[vc commodore]

What, no alcoholic drink bottles on the bench showing what you celebrated with...

 

[VS_Pete]

Nice

 

[keith reed]

Sorry, can't make it to the house warming party. Please don't take offence, it's this Covid thing.

 

[Lex]

Sorry, can't make it to the house warming party. Please don't take offence, it's this Covid thing.

I'm in the same boat.

 

[losh1971]

Nothing new. However, I have booked in a posi track for four weeks time. Plan is to get all the yard around 900 m2 of it graded so it's all smooth. This will bring all the gravel to the surface, but all the grass lumps and dirt bumps will be smoothed out. Plan then will be to get a wacker plate and vibrate the gravel down. Then hopefully if the grass comes through I can possibly mow it, without sending a rock through the window. I will probably still maintain the spraying until I can afford soil, which is unlikely to be this year. Chances are I may not bring in soil until autumn when I can seed and lawn up. Although I may consider turf, that way I can throw it straight down over the gravelly sand and will save on soil and a posi a second time, which could work out at a similar price and will have instant effect.
Been quoted $800 - $1000, which is not bad for a posi and an operator for a day, including taking some soil away.

 

[VS 5.0]

First I was undecided.....now I'm not so sure.


If funds allow, I'd turf it straight up.....far less likely to have weed issues and no dust issues while waiting for seed to grow.

 

[losh1971]

If funds allow, I'd turf it straight up.....far less likely to have weed issues and no dust issues while waiting for seed to grow.

This will be the problem, funds won't allow, not for a fair while anyway. I have the fence money that I'm tapping into to cover the posi this time round. Don't want to tap into it too much as I could be hit up for two fences at any time and that will mean spending the ute savings if neighbours ask anytime this year or early next. Plus I want to keep most of the fence funds in case a decent ute comes up and I need use them to put towards one.

Turf is about $8m and I think I'd need at least 500 m2. I'd have to compare prices of dirt, second machine hire, and seed to see if the price is much the same, or not a lot more for roll out. Seed is fairly expensive anyway in Tas because your average Bunnings lawn seed won't grow too well because of the frost. Even if I have to seed it will be April before I do it, unless someone makes me an offer on my other house that I'd be mad to refuse...

I tried Bunnings seed at my other house and three years on I still don't have a nice lawn out the front. Hoping I can get it growing this summer but I only have a two month window to soak and fertilise it as much as possible and try and get it growing, before it's too cold. Ideally turf will go down, as yeah it's instant and I have laid plenty of it in the past, so can do it all myself, might just need to rope in some family to jump on rakes, soil levellers and roller.

 

[losh1971]

Few pics of the yard as you can see we have a lot of open space. Been trying to keep the glypho up to it, to keep the weeds down. Sent the pics to the posi operator so he has an idea on what I need doing.

 

[Fu Manchu]

The lawn seed you have been using will have failed for two reasons, retail seed varieties not so great for Australia (That's another story) and choosing seed with a low germination rate.

If you do go with seed, use, specifically, Munns Emerald Kikuyu. It's a highly robust variety of seed that has a high germination rate and excellent growth characteristics for an area the size of yours. So over sowing shouldn't need to be an added expense. It is a hybrid kike and has really dense growth. The leaves are really close to each other. It is slower growing than traditional Kike. A more refined variety. The labelling may have changed since Munns sold to Yates, so just make sure it's Emerald. A small box of seed with high germination goes a much longer way than a big box with low germination and filler varieties of seed that make you think its working and then it doesn't.

On a budget, you could focus on getting it going in smaller areas and then dig up and plant out into surrounding areas for it to spread and fill over following months.

Make use of molasses diluted in water to maintain strong growth and early root growth. It too is really cheap and readily available from farm supply places. Way cheaper than fertiliser for 500m2.

 

[losh1971]

Emerald is great but it won't grow here. I've already tried. Any creeping grass is too slow as we only have about 2 maybe 3 months of growing season for such grasses. Kikuyu as you know loves temps 25 -30 deg to really flourish. We just don't get enough days that temp to make it work. Kikuyu hates frost and we can get frosts right up until Christmas.