December 2015

I have spent a lot of time and energy in recent years developing and constructing my organic low water use vegetable garden,  and during this time I have neglected my ornamental garden especially my wife's beloved front lawn.

This picture shows the lawn stripped of its topsoil, dug to about 300mm into virgin soil and fitted with a simple sub turf drip irrigation system.  The design of our front garden has one eye on low maintenance for our old age, and is structured and very basic, but the plants will make up for that I hope.

We already have herbs, dwarf fruit trees, raspberry canes and a grape vine growing in this area and the lawn will provide a welcome and regular supply of green leaf for my compost heap. 

Here it is again a few weeks later looking a bit bare, but the turf was laid in 37 deg C heat unfortunately.  The bare ground was covered with about 30mm of home made compost and 8 bags of aged cow manure, watered and left to mature under shadecloth for a few days.  It was then irrigated every day for 3 days prior to laying the turf.

Since then the new lawn has been soaked again from above (sprinklers), and then drip irrigated for an hour every day for a week.  I am slowly reducing this to an hour every 3 days to encourage the roots to go down deep.  Once established the lawn will be irrigated with all the other irrigated beds as needed.

My irrigation system is able to water 3 separate zones independently, and I anticipate the lawn's zone will be least irrigated in time.