Buffalo Renovation // Start to Finish // Using Simple Tools // St Augustine/Sir Walter Buffalo Reno

This is a video about how to renovate your Buffalo Lawn (St Augustine for USA) from start to finish, using the simple tools of lawn care that you probably already have.. If you have a lawn, surely you'll have at least a rotary mower? A solid edger? Right?? So for Buffalo renovation, as it is a warm season lawn you will need to renovate in Spring when there is active growth. A couple of weeks before your planned renovation, do say a mow a week with your regular mower, slightly lower each time to reduce the height. You may take opportunity during this process to start cutting vertically as well to remove excess runners and thatch. Sure the lawn will lose a lot of colour but think the long game and how good it'll repair during the grow in after the renovation. Mowing and reducing the height here will also remove a fair bit of material that if you just left it for the renovation. My recommendation is to start lowering the height when the lawn is growing. Early in Spring, it'll be growing but not super fast and at this stage to I would recommend you put down soil wetter and some granular fertiliser that is slow release. Granted, you'll suck some of that granular fertiliser in your subsequent mows but this will help the lawn after renovation to recover a bit better, faster and more healthy. Now importantly, and I can't stress this enough! DO NOT MOW BUFFALO TO THE GROUND AND SCARIFIY. The reason for this is that Buffalo spreads with above ground runners only. If you take all these runners (called stolons) and leaf you willl only be left with roots under the ground and this isn't enough for the plant to regenerate. Buffalo needs green leaf showing for photosynthesis and growth. The harder you go on cutting it back, the longer the repair will be. Don't go too heavy with the topdress. You can cover the leaf a bit but only by a few mm. Have some leaf showing. Topdressing is your chance to level the lawn area out. Thicker areas of topdress to level will take longer to recover. Aim for your renovation to be when you expect the Spring weather to be lows of 10 degrees and highs of 25. Obviously weather is unpredictable but try aiming for this time. Personally I am having lows of 5-8 and heights of 25-30 but there are some cooler days ahead after this but typically as is usual with Spring the temperatures will increase. Cool climate areas, October might be your renovation point. Renovation recovery for Buffalo is longer than varieties like couch and kikuyu. It is just a slower grower and instead of the 3-4 weeks couch may take to recover, Buff might be a 4-6 week wait or longer. Again, it is up to many things, weather etc. So simply for renovation, low-mow, remove as much long runner and thatch as possible, aerate (I skipped this step - My aerator is in Covid Lockdown so waiting waiting... I'll renovate after a couple of weeks of growth) and topdress. For Topdress go a sand like Garden Grove Topdress (SA only and exclusive to Garden Grove I am afraid) or a good sandy loam from your supplier. Sand is great for drainage but it isn't perfect and will need assistance via soil wetters to accept and hold moisture better and particularly you need to pay attention to feeding it with fertiliser. Sandy soils because of that great aeration capability, leeches nutrients more readily. Level out that topdress with a soil spreader, put down soil wetter, humic acid and this is a great time to put down insecticide. Moist, Hero and History are your friends here and they are professional products. I have added Nuturf Amino+ to my mix and this is a great product for when lawns need quick recovery from stress (renovations are stressful) or when you need a repair after a fungal infection. Nuturf Amino+ is available in 20L from www.nuturf.com.au You will have to email them with an enquiry. Sorry, Lawnporn are not doing a 1L version of Amino+ at this stage. It is a fairly specialist product and probably causes a bit too much surge growth for the average home lawnie. This product certainly makes the lawn jump. Following the renovation you'll have to keep an eye on moisture while the lawn recovers. For the first week, everyday I span out a syringe watering, 10 mins three times a day. From there on as the lawn grows in you can start reducing the water down to about 5-6 weeks after the renovation you'll look at 1 deep watering event (an hour or so) a week. Follow our program totally suitable for buffalo on www.lawnpornonline.com Spring 2021 Program https://d27f7fd1-ac50-4958-9260-2f628... For a look at the GreenWorks gear go to www.greenworksaustralia.com.au You can buy all our stuff from our Stockists, the ToolRoom (Online) and Amazon (Online) https://www.lawnpornonline.com/stockists https://toolroom.com.au Moist: https://amzn.to/3nxtBTY Four Seasons: https://amzn.to/3lu4YVx Many thanks. Get your lawn on!!! #lawnreno #levellawn #sandtopdress