Decisions, decisions...

Who knew choosing turf was going to be such a confusing job?  There are quite a few varieties of turf to choose from:

Buffalo - (Sir Walter, Sapphire, Matilda etc.) is drought tolerant. Low mainenance, maintains it's colour in Winter. Less invasive into gardens than Kikuyu or Couch therefore less maintenance.Less mowing than Kikuyu (approx. 50% in Summer). Requires less water.

Couch- has a fine leaf and texture.  It has a rich green colour but in frost prone areas it will become brown over winter.

Kikuyu-Needs full sun, easy to grow due to the runners it sends, fast growing so needs mowing at least once a week during summer.  As it sends out runners, it does invade garden beds.

So after much research we decided we go for a soft leaf Buffalo called Sapphire.  It is a fine and smaller leafed buffalo variety.

We used 7 ton of 80/20 turf underlay to level the front area before the turf could be laid.  Was totally back breaking work which we did mostly in the evenings as it was so much cooler to work when the sun was down.

80 sqm of turf

Also planted a row of Japanese box hedges along the front wall  and Society Garlic along the  front of the deck.

We were lucky that it rained almost every day the first week after the turf was laid.  It's been almost two weeks now and it seems to have survived and looks to be growing well. It might even need to be mowed soon.