Did my whole lot plus a neighbours down the street who's following my lead here on Friday and have to now do the final top dressing and screeding to retain that billiard table finish. My lads off on School Holidays as of tomorrow so he's the one that's going to be dragging the screeder around for an hour or so. Give the old man a break I say.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
Drainage is excellent, I was thinking sand as I'm paranoid about top soil being contaminated with weeds and seeds (I know it's supposed to be treated) but I would hate to bring anything into the lawn as it's 98% weed free, what's in the lawn mix? Would you recommend top dressing now or wait to the lawn greens up a bit? I have been watering the lawn well as I have a water tank and a fire pump and plan on doing a few more cuts during the week at this height to get the lawn used to the height and not shoot back up to where it was. Also can anyone tell me when I should get the Scotty on the pitch or should I keep using the rotary mower untill the lawn starts to shape up, my other question is if I put top soil or sand can I run over it with the Scotty or will it blunt the blades.
Sorry for asking to many questions but this is new to me, I have never had my lawn this low and this is going to be my first mow with the Scotty. I'm still paranoid my lawns going to die on me.
As for the fishing it doesn't fish like it used to 30-40 years ago when you could throw a line in and catch a good fish all the time anywhere, I have grown up on this water my whole life and know where some of the bigger fish hang out now. We pick up some good bream around the 40cm mark and estuary Perch in the 40+cm, Luderick also in that size as well plenty of good sized mud crabs too, as for the flatties well 70-80cm and there's bigger ones if your patient. Live poddy mullet at night is always interesting I almost lost my fingers a couple of times as we put handlines out with 30kg+ line and we get snapped off instantly (most likely sting rays). Theres nothing like the sheer power of a massive sting ray cutting through the water when it runs.
Top dress as soon as possible as this way the lawn will shoot up through it opposed to it being smothered and having to struggle through it. basically you're putting soil on top of soil with roots in it.
I always use nothing more than orange Brickies Sand (the darker orange the better) and never all these expensive "concoctions of whatever". I will be using it again this year and I spread it out on the warn concrete and totally dry it out, this way it will run in to all the low spots just like the sand goes through the hour glass when you screed it around.
As far as using the Scotty is concerned just ensure that your bare exposed soil is just a tad damp so that it doesn't stick to the rollers and not too dry so that the air movement created by the reel doesn't flick it up like a rotary would do. No need to use the rotary for anything else other than the scalping process. In other words you could store the rotary totally off site as that's how much you're going to need it.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
Sand is what I was wanting to go for, so obviously fill in between the roots and screed it to the level I have cut then just keep watering and mowing on a regular basis and fertalize and Scotty does the rest.
How many scoops of sand do you think I will need for my lawn?
I got the Scotty out over the weekend and started it up for the first time and she started second pull, it seems to be running fine just had to fix a few adjustments to the clutch leaver and adjust the drive cable as it was travelling to fast for my walking pace. Only problem I had was the on off fuel tap was leaking at the valve so I ordered a new one so easy fix.
I'm not sure how far back you've cut it, but in saying that I can't answer the question of how much sand you require as I don't know how uneven your surface is and how perfect you want to make it. The last thing you want is high spots as that's harder to work with later than low spots.
Low spots you can always fill while high spots have to be dug out or re-profiled using a modified mower like I've got. BTW don't ever worry about the thought of killing a regenerative type grass as no matter how deep you cut there will always be roots in the soil that will grow new grass.
Maybe best you take some good photos of what you have to work with and put them up here so we can give you a bit of a plan to work with.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
I haven't taken it down to dirt, but I would say I got 20-25mm to fill in the depest spots, and the thatch was only from the tree to the shed the rest is fairly new growth that I encouraged to run from the thatch stuff. I would say 8x8m, I have ordered about 1.5m3, if it needs more I will get another lot. It should be delivered today so will see if I got enough, and asses it is as I go.
I guess it is a case of what works for the individual and one size may not fit all and we are talking specifically about Buffalo. There are a couple of reasons to top dress, either to add nutrients and organic matter to the lawn or to level lawn. I have never top dressed Buffalo, I use the lawn mix very sparingly and only in the area's that are a little thread bare after the scalp. A decent lawn mix will benefit any lawn and as the soil in my area is not the best it does help, the cost difference between the mix and yellow sand was $8 for a half trailer which is enough to do my front and rear. Sand doe's the same thing as a mix without adding anything to the lawn. The reason I dont top dress is that you have scalped the lawn to reduce the thatch, why would you want to encourage it to grow thicker, faster ? Buffalo does this without help and excess thatch build up is the biggest issue with Buffalo. I think these days top dressing of Buffalo is not recommended unless for the purpose of minor leveling. If you have a deeper depressed area it's probably quicker to cut that area on 3 sides, lift it and ad soil from your garden under the section and relay it rather than progressively top dressing. I did this a couple of years ago to an area which has an old rotting root ball of a palm under the ground, might need another go next year again until things fully settle. Just my thoughts and contribution to the thread.
PS. Fishing sounds pretty good BS, jealous of those nice big flatties you guys have on the east coast, we have the bartails mainly which don't grow big, a 50cm fish is photo worthy !
Hi Wce, I don't have a photo but its coming along well
Have had very good fortune - I sprayed with seasol, power feed with some epsom salt mixed in. I watered it in, and then it rained that night. Then 2 weeks later, I spread (with a spreader) general purpose NPK lightly, and watered it in - then it rained again that night
The result has been good growth - initially some patches but these are growing out. I mowed on Victa height 7 - just a light cut, overall looking good
Pretty happy with the progress, I'm aiming at getting it to look it's best ( as well as I can do ) by Christmas. Note the garden bed at the retaining wall is now gone, picked up some roll on Sir Walter seconds and its well on it's way. It will all blend in. This front section of my lawn now consists of what ever Buffalo was around about 18 years ago, Matilda and now Sir Walter.
Looks very nice wce - can just see the outline where the garden bed was.
We did the exact opposite in July 2017 - had a trouble spot of grass that never seemed to grow got ripped up and a rose bed planted (got over a dozen 40 odd year old roses before down the road was bulldozed and 3 units put up).
My problem is now the buffalo is seeding for some reason - plenty of water and fertilizer so hopefully it will go in a couple of weeks. They say to mow when it starts to seed, but with 40 degree tomorrow it wouldn't end too well.
Honestly it's pretty damm hard to kill Buffalo, Kikuyu and Couch, regardless of how warm it gets. Certainly it might not like it, but these breeds of lawn are Aussie Tough.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
Buffalo is pretty hardy but no where near as tough as the other 2 mentioned. Certainly wouldn't kill the lawn mowing yesterday but the combination of the heat plus the strong hot easterlies is a good recipe for cooking the top off fresh cut lawn. Much better today and will be kinder on the mower, the mowee and the lawn. I managed to get hold of a one owner SB twin rail 17 with original engine which runs mint, I have used it a couple of times, it's a bit tricky getting around the sloped corner bit but I can see why people are fond of them. It doesn't seem to deal with the stolons on the surface but this would be due to the lack of clearance between the blades. There is no way the VSX 160 will be getting retired so my plan is to use it every third or fourth mow. this should keep the stolons at bay and hopefully reduce the rate of thatch build up.
Don't be under any illusion that Scotties are hard to come by as there are thousands and thousands still out there either being used or pushed to the rear of the shed of many folks and considered as obsolete.
This is why I can't get my head around people paying $500 for a junker that needs another $600 ~ $800 spent on it to get it into a servicable state again.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
Your right, I see plenty of them about and for sale but most are rubbish that need $$ spent on it or the nicer units are pricey so either way it was out of my price range. I was lucky, in the right place at the right time and nice original units that are in good serviceable condition at a reasonable cost are harder to come by. I was happy with the purchase price at $90, it needs a new muffler which I have, just need to make the time to fit it.
I must admit if I obtained a Twin railer and decided on keeping it and it wasn't showing any signs of fracturing yet then regardless of what engine is fitted or how good it is, I'd hoik it off and replace it with one of these new Briggs power plants so as to be kind to those aging rails that will eventually fail with the old thumpers fitted.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
