rossf - that is looking tops mate! QLD Blue Couch is the bomb IMHO.
I use an SB 17" Mod 45 and have QLD Blue Couch.
My stripes are very apparent for 1-2 weeks and then fade out after that if I don't mow. Different grasses will take the stripes to different degrees. The broader the leaf and longer the grass, the less of a stripe/shorter stripe retention you will get. If you don't want stripes at all with a cylinder, you could mow the yard in one direction, but this is very tedious because you have to drag to mower back to the start of every run.
Generally, I mow 1-2 times a week in summer and then once a week the rest of the year. In winter, I may drop back to fortnightly if it gets really cold (by QLD standards) because it is just a waste of fuel to get one catcher worth of clippings from mowing ~700m2 of grass.
I posted the following in my Intro thread, but here is is again on how I care for my lawn...
I fertilize 2-3 time a year with urea (which gives a lot of extra leaf growth) and let that have a week or so to get kicked off - you know it has because the grass grows ~1" every 2 days so you have to mow 3 times a week! Once it has kicked off, I spray it with a growth retardant which slows the long blade growth so you only have to mow once a week, but it makes the grass really thicken up.
The only watering I do is when I apply the urea - if you don't, you will burn your whole yard - I normally fertilize in the pissing down rain so I don't have to water. Other than that, the only care it gets is mowing, broad leaf weed/target weed spraying for nut grass or mullumbimby as required, spray for lawn grubs as required - both of which isn't very often. Luckily no bindii yet. Because the grass is so short and thick, most weeds just don't have a snowflakes chance in hell of establishing. The blue couch has also taken over most of the footpath out the front of one of the neighbours places too - green couch just doesn't handle the constant short cutting.
The other things is you should raise you cut height a bit now for the colder months too...not too much...I find 3-4mm is plenty. Just give the couch a bit more leaf for the shorter days of sun.
I only change direction of mowing when the grass starts to develop as 'wave' in the cut - this happens maybe 3-4 times a year. It is like rolling pastry, if you keep rolling back and forth in one direction, you will start to get 'waves' which are an uneveness in the thickness. Easily fixed by mowing at 90 degrees to you normal cutting direction for 1 or two mows - and you end up with checkerboard patterns.
The only other time I mow in a different direction is if I want to change the pattern to checkers or diamonds - I would normally only do this if I have a daytime BBQ at my place...always gets the praise going.
I generally don't top dress, but now that the grass is well established and after all the rain during summer, there are a few little dips and bumps I would like to smooth out. I have used a sandy loam before and was rather unimpressed by it. Steve Jones Landscaping in Brisbane has the most amazing top dressing I have ever scene/used. It is a bit more expensive, but it contains heaps of organic matter. I used a meter of it after running some ag pipe and drains in my back yard during summer when the summer rain highlighted some drainange issues, and it made the grass it was applied to go totally ballistic!
With the cooler weather now, my grass has dropped of from its best significantly and this is only over the period of ~1 month. I will take some pics after I mow on the weekend.
Ben.
