OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Lawn Care & Maintenance Bentgrass Experiment

So for a long time I've been interested in different types of lawns and in particular fine blade lawns that can be mowed low. When researching lawn varieties to plant in my backyard I looked into bentgrass but as I has a need to put something down that could be used by the kids relatively quickly I went with Santa Ana Couch (here's my post). I then decided to do my front lawn and after annoying the guys at advanced seed in Melbourne with repeated emails and phone calls I settled on Penncross Creeping Bentgrass seed. Being a cool season grass the research tell me to do an initial planting in Autumn to establish a strong base and oversow the following Spring to fill in the gaps, that way the lawn will be as strong and healthy for the Summer period when Bentgrass can struggle (very shallow root structure).

I've always wanted Bentgrass as I believe it is the most beautiful lawn available and unmatched when looked after correctly so this was the perfect opportunity.

I killed off the old mixture of fescue, rye, kikuyu and who knows what else was mixed into that conglomeration of lawn mess.



I then rotary hoed the ground and let it sit for a good 2 weeks before planting seed.


Next was to level and install the irrigation before seeding the lawn. I went with Hunter MP Rotators as they're the only sprinklers that will allow me to run all 10 at the same time on mains pressure ( I was considering running PVC and a small pump with a mixing tank so I could fertigate my fertiliser rather than spreading/broadcasting it, but I think the wife might have had a heart attack). I put 4 tonnes of sandy loam, leveled it, lightly rolled the soil spread the seeds, a little more sandy loam, light roll again to ensure seed to soil contact and raked the edges where I seeded by hand rather than us the spreader.


I started seeing growth at around 10 days



3 weeks


31 Days - First mow




Today is actually 8 weeks since planting. I don't have a photo on me at work but i'll post it when I get the chance


I believe that I didn't compact the soil properly before I added the sandy loam as even thought it was leveled with a straight edge prior to seeding there are quite a few low spots in the lawn. But with topdressing and over sowing in Spring I plan to get most of those out without too much effort. Also SimRice's post has some really useful information for leveling uneven lawn too, so I may borrow some of those ideas too.



I really don't know how Bentgrass will go as it's almost universally not recommended for home use due to its high maintenance requirements, low heat tolerance and high nitrogen requirements. But I reckon I can make a go of it. And if I get it right, the results will be fantastic!