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Hi,
I am looking to repair my lawn, which you can see is in quite a state, and was wondering on which option you'd recomment:
1. From what I can tell, it's Kikuyu grass, do I stick with that and try to reseed and repain the dead patches and create a new patch next to the small decking?
2. Dig it all up, start fresh and lay with new pre-grown turf (like Sir Walter Buffalo)
Cheers,
Danny
Hello,
Exactly a year ago I was on here asking about options to repair or replace a lawn. Thankyou @Nailbag @Dave-1 @JacobZ for your responses. I unded up digging it up, removing weeds and old grass, levelling (or I thought I did) and laying new Sir Walter Buffalo from Bunnings. Through summer and spring it really flourished and looked a amazing. It looked very healthy, had strong growth and required a few mows. However, winter hit and with the sun passing lower it started to die off (see pic below). During the depths of winter, two thirds of it doesn't get sun (where the grass is near the garden bed is pretty much the shadow line from the northern fence). I guess my questions are:
1. Do I just give up on grass in this area as no grass will withstand no sun in winter?
2. If grass can withstand, is it perhaps a drainage and water pooling issue...and if so, any recommendations on how i'd go about building in drainage or solutions to the pooling issue?
I really did enjoy the grass for six months, so that would be my preference, but there are also plenty of other solutions we could go with.
Thankyou.
Hello @DannyRowntree
I'm sorry to hear that your lawn did not survive the winter. However, if the lawn did not get any direct sunlight that pretty much spells the end for it. Buffalo lawn is very hardy, but even it needs a few hours of direct sunlight. I propose doing a hybrid approach such as a paved walkway with the lawn on the left and right of it. I've placed a sample image below rendered with AI to give you an idea what the walkway can look like in combination with the lawn.
Let me call on our experienced members @Dave-1, @Nailbag and @AlanM52 for their recommendations.
If you need further assistance, please let us know.
Eric
Good Evening @DannyRowntree
"Bugger" is what comes to mind. Having a look at your picture the weeds seem to be very happy with themselves while the center area is worn down.
Is it an high trafficed area?
Have you checked out teh PH of the soil?
And do you think the area stays super wet for a period of time?
I just zoomed in on the weeds on the right, I have those and I think they are cat claws 😕 They smother grass and kill it off, I have tried nuking it but it still comes back, I have pulled it out by the roots and it stays bare for a few months as grass slowly recolinises the area. That could be a reason for the grass die back?
If the area stays wet then that could also help explain why the grass has died off, or maybe a mixture of over damp and kids cricket pitch? 
Maybe a next step would be to work on making the soil less dense? It still looks compacted even tho you have dug it up.
I do like @EricL's suugestion of the center path being more robust. That could work and still give you grass either side.
Dave
Hi @DannyRowntree,
PlantNet identifies that as Kikuyu Grass.
I would do Option 2 with @EricL's AI Render and synthetic turf and you won't have anymore sunshine issues along with lawn care like mowing, trimming, watering etc. However... I encourage you to do some 'caring for synthetic turf' searching because it comes with it's own maintenance tasks.
Cheers
