Lawn covering

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chadbukl
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Lawn covering

Postby chadbukl » Tue Nov 06, 2012 9:41 am

Hi,

I would like to lay a lawn at my new home near Malaga and wonder what recommendations people had for a slow growing, low water grass seed that maintains its colour an will withstand light to medium foot traffic ( yes I don't want much :). )

Thanks in advance
C

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peteroldracer
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby peteroldracer » Tue Nov 06, 2012 10:24 am

IMHO it is not worth the trouble, expense, water and constant maintenance - tiles, printed concrete or polifibra covered with chino works for me!
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fincalospinos
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby fincalospinos » Tue Nov 06, 2012 12:31 pm

Interesting article here:

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/pro ... px?pid=292
Hardworking resident !!

Footprint
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby Footprint » Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:46 pm

That is really useful - thank you for the link.
You can spend, minutes, hours, days, weeks or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened - or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the f**k on.

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Re: Lawn covering

Postby ajtg1952 » Tue Nov 06, 2012 4:47 pm

We laid a lawn this summer using turfs. This gives a play area for the grandchildren and me to keep my putting sharp. We used turf because it was instant. We laid it in August and watered it every day for two weeks, then we had a ban implimented on watering of gardens so we had to leave it to go yellow. However the rain over the last few weeks had brought it back lovely. We have given it a feed and a few cuts and it has knitted together and is as good as any lawn we had in Scotland. We used a company called Grass Europa who have a turf farm 4km west of Antequera. It cost us €4 per sq.m. and we had to pick it up ourselves. 30 sq.m. weighs about 800kgs.

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Martin Page
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby Martin Page » Tue Nov 06, 2012 5:01 pm

Astro turf laid on a bed of compacted sand, so that it feel like a lawn to walk on.
They produce some very good 'grasses' now - even ones that have a brown dead grass mat under the green. Very realistic and very low maintenance.
The sand also help drainage, when you have weather like we have now !

olive
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby olive » Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:55 pm

ajtg1952 wrote:We laid a lawn this summer using turfs. This gives a play area for the grandchildren and me to keep my putting sharp. We used turf because it was instant. We laid it in August and watered it every day for two weeks, then we had a ban implimented on watering of gardens so we had to leave it to go yellow. However the rain over the last few weeks had brought it back lovely. We have given it a feed and a few cuts and it has knitted together and is as good as any lawn we had in Scotland. We used a company called Grass Europa who have a turf farm 4km west of Antequera. It cost us €4 per sq.m. and we had to pick it up ourselves. 30 sq.m. weighs about 800kgs.
That is the problem in my view. Water isn't going to get more plentiful with increased irrigation, demands from ever more appliances and desertification. The very months you want a nice lawn are the months when you cannot use it! Those prices per m are very good. We recently looked at artificial turf in Loja (Verde Garden Centre) and it was 46 euros a m sq. It was very realistic as you would imagine for the price.

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anis
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby anis » Wed Nov 07, 2012 6:53 am

I have recently been looking at some good quality Belgian artificial grass - 25 euros m2
It has a lot of threads on the rear matting - rather like doing towel thread count comparisons for quality.
The man selling it was operating out of Trocha Coin Sunday market - a British supplier. It was called ARTI- LAWN and had a long guarantee.
I have a huge swathe of real grass all over the old orchard but we use Bermuda grass because it is very tough.

chadbukl
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby chadbukl » Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:11 am

Thanks for all the replies, although i see the merits of concrete or artificial grass i would like the satisfaction of some "real green"
fincalospinos wrote:Interesting article here:

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/pro ... px?pid=292
this looks really useful......I will let you know how i get on

:) C

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Re: Lawn covering

Postby El Cid » Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:44 am

We have a 70m2 lawn. It was sown with English type seed rather than have the creeping Spanish grass. I also overseeded it with Bermuda grass and it looks good almost all year round. It needs loads of water and lots of fertiliser but it looks like a proper English lawn.

Sid

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gina59
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby gina59 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:16 pm

where do you get bermuda grass seed?
My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.

El Cid
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby El Cid » Wed Nov 07, 2012 3:14 pm

I got it from our local nursery. It's not very common and quite expensive compared to general purpose grass seed. It's used a lot on golf courses here.

I think the brand was Numex Sahara.

Bermuda grass is usually grown from live sprigs as it does not naturally produce seed. Hybrid varieties have been developed which do seed and as a result they are expensive.

Personally if I had to do it again I would buy turf designed for the area. It just wasn't available 10 years ago.

Sid

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gina59
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby gina59 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 5:37 pm

:thumbup:
My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.

esteponaman
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby esteponaman » Thu Nov 08, 2012 8:22 pm

Last April/May I sowed 300M2 of Chateau grass on about 75mm of top soil , it first came up in clumps but after reseeding the patchy areas I am now pleased with the result. I had your list of requirements and this grass was recommended to me as being suitable.

Grass could be seen coming through the soil after only 9 days. The biggest problem at the start was stopping the ants carrying the seed away!. But now it needs constant monitoring to stop the native Grama grass taking over . This is probably normal with every lawn.

20 KG of grass seed cost about 120 euros and I think it is claims to cover 10SM2 per kg. I bought 3 bags and have some seed left for replanting areas.

Purchased in Navarro Montes , Los Barrios.

Hope that helps

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Re: Lawn covering

Postby Sandramay » Thu Nov 08, 2012 10:48 pm

On my last visit I think I saw Andy Murray coming out of Sid's garden gate ........... :)
Sandramay

axarquian
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby axarquian » Fri Nov 09, 2012 12:03 am

So what do you use to stop the ants carrying it away ? I have tried mixing seed with ant powder before sowing but it still seems to disappear !!

esteponaman
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby esteponaman » Fri Nov 09, 2012 7:07 pm

Ants robbing grass seed

constant monitoring round the clock! and zap them with powder.

It's amazing how quickly they can discover a newly seeded area.
Also, irrigation used about 1 m3 of water during summer

El Cid
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Re: Lawn covering

Postby El Cid » Fri Nov 09, 2012 7:13 pm

esteponaman wrote:
Also, irrigation used about 1 m3 of water during summer
Per day I assume.

Sid

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Re: Lawn covering

Postby Sandramay » Sat Nov 10, 2012 10:32 am

I wonder if the trick I use in the Uk for re-seeding parts of the lawn would work in Spain. I mix the grass seed with some fine, just damp compost in a black bin liner and twist the top to keep the dampness in. Give the bag a little shake daily. After a few days (depends on the temp.) the seed has 'chitted' I then sprinkle the mix on the bare patches and hey presto, fine blades of grass two or three days later and good growth aided by the compost.
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