Couch lawns have long been a favourite lawn variety in Australia. Its characteristics include a preference for Australia’s warm sunny environments, good drought resistance and quick repair capabilities.
Couch grass varieties like OzTuff®, IronCutter®, and Stadium® has a fine leaf blade that mows beautifully with a cylinder mower. When the lawn is in great health, with a dark green colour, cylinder mowing will create that flat ‘bowling green’ finish for your own home lawn.
Couch has undergone many improvements in the past 20 years, with many new cultivars becoming available. The new Hybrid Couches have a nice finish, good dark green colour with increased wear and repair capabilities. A popular variety is OzTUFF, which is a hard-wearing fine leaf grass with great natural colour. It also is very disease resistant and has been proven to be the number one Couch for wear tolerance.
Spraying for all weed types is relatively straight forward for Couch Grass. This lawn type has no known bad side effects to any commonly used selective herbicides, so homeowners can feel very confident and safe when controlling weeds on their Couch lawn.
Couch grass has a very rapid growth rate, this is the reason why the grass is so much cheaper to purchase than all other lawn types. A turf farm can very quickly grow a new batch of Couch at almost twice the speed of other grasses.
This rapid growth rate of Couch is terrific when you have kids playing in the yard, or the lawn is subject to other heavy traffic – meaning the lawn can easily repair itself from damage.
However, there are also downsides to this fast growth. Couch will very quickly invade surrounding paths and garden beds, sending its underground runners deep into the soil and under fences.
Lawn mowing is required more frequently in order to keep removing the right amount of leaf to keep the lawn healthy. However, Couch lawns will build-up their thatch layers very quickly and require verti-mowing / de-thatching more often than other grasses in order to keep the lawn green and healthy.
Due to its very fine leaf blade, Couch is a poor grass when it comes to absorbing sunlight – sunlight being that vital ingredient which fuels the photosynthesis process in all living plant’s – including our lawns.
For this reason, Couch lawns need to be planted in areas which receive direct sunlight for most of the day. They have the highest demand for direct sunlight of all the lawn types. If Couch is ever subjected to heavily shaded areas, the lawn will simply wither away and die.
If plants, trees or bushes have become overgrown and are shading your Couch lawn, leaving the grass in poor health, then the excess foliage must be heavily pruned to substantially increase sunlight levels, and to restore the lawn back to health.
Varieties of Couch to consider for your lawn are OZTUFF® and Stadium®.
Bow and Arrow 500mL is one of the most effective broadleaf liquid herbicides on the market. Suitable for Zoysia, Kikuyu, Couch and Buffalo grasses however transient discolouration may occur on Kikuyu, Carpet and Queensland Blue Couch lawns. Always read the safety directions and instructions on the product label before use.
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Lawn Pride Maintain 26-2-9 + 3.4 Fe 20kg is one of the most popular granular all-round lawn fertilisers on the market with the active ingredients of Nitrogen (N – 26), Phosphorus (P – 2), Potassium(K – 9) and Iron (Fe – 3.4). Suitable for Zoysia, Kikuyu, Couch and Buffalo grasses. Always read the safety directions and instructions on the product label before use.
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Acelepryn GR 10kg Bag provides unmatched granular seasonal control against seasonal Long Grub and Caterpillar control in one single application. Suitable for Zoysia, Kikuyu, Couch and Buffalo grasses. Always read the safety directions and instructions on the product label before use.
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