Brunnings Kikuyu Lawn Seed, what it is and when to sow it

Kikuyu is the grass people end up with when they want a lawn that copes with a hot dry summer and still looks like a lawn by the end of it, and Brunnings Kikuyu Lawn Seed is the bagged way to start one from scratch rather than paying for turf.

What is actually in the bag

It's a blend, so there's kikuyu seed doing the long term work and a fast annual ryegrass sitting over the top of it as a nursery cover. The ryegrass comes up first and holds the surface together while the kikuyu is still underground, and then it fades out over the following season and leaves you with the kikuyu. That's the bit people misread, because the green you see in the first couple of weeks is mostly the ryegrass, and it isn't the lawn you're actually growing.

Why people around here choose it

Kikuyu runs. It spreads by above ground runners and by rhizomes underneath, which is why it fills in its own bare patches instead of waiting for you to reseed them, and it's also why it puts up with kids, dogs and a cricket pitch worn into it every summer. It's a warm season grass, so it does its growing in the heat, and it'll go off colour through a cold winter and then green back up as things warm again. That's normal and it isn't the lawn dying.

The part nobody tells you before you sow it

The same runners that repair your lawn will head straight into your garden beds, along the fence line and under the edging, and once kikuyu is properly into a bed it's genuinely annoying to get back out again. So if you're putting it in, put a hard edge in at the same time, because a mowing strip or a solid edge is a lot less work than pulling runners out of your roses every second weekend. If there's a bed you care about sitting right next to the lawn, have an honest think about that before you open the bag.

When to sow it

Warm season grasses germinate on soil temperature rather than on the calendar, so kikuyu goes in once the soil has warmed up properly and there's a long run of warm weather ahead of it. Sowing into cold soil is the commonest way to waste a bag, because the seed just sits there and a fair chunk of it never comes up at all. Late spring through summer is the window here.

Sowing it without wasting half the bag

• Get the weeds out first and knock the surface up with a rake, because seed sitting on hard compacted ground doesn't do much.
• Spread it evenly. A small hand spreader is worth having over throwing it by hand, which always goes thick in some spots and bare in others.
• The sowing rate is printed on the bag, so go off that rather than guessing, and resist the urge to go heavy, because more seed doesn't give you a thicker lawn.
• Keep the top few millimetres damp until it's up. Light and often beats a long soak, and letting it dry out once at the wrong moment is what kills a new lawn.
• Leave the first mow until the seedlings are tall enough to take it, then mow regularly, because mowing is what pushes kikuyu to spread sideways instead of up.

Feeding it once it's away

A new lawn doesn't need feeding while it's germinating, and it does want nitrogen once it's running and being mown. Whatever lawn food you use, water it in properly afterwards, because fertiliser left sitting dry on the leaf is how a lawn gets burnt, and that's the commonest lawn disaster there is.

Shop related products

• Brunnings Kikuyu Lawn Seed 1KG. The kikuyu blend with the ryegrass nursery cover, for a new lawn or a big bare patch.
• Brunnings Kikuyu Max Lawn Seed 135g. The small pack, better suited to patching than to doing a whole yard.
• Brunnings Green Up Lawn Food 5kg. A granular lawn food for once the lawn is established and being mown.
• Brunnings Green Up Lawn Food 2.5kg. The smaller bag, which suits a small lawn or a first go at feeding one.

Did you know we also keep Green Up Lawn Food in the bigger 10kg and 20kg bags in the shop, and those sizes aren't on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf. There's a fertiliser spreader in the garden centre as well, which makes spreading seed and lawn food a lot more even than doing it by hand.

The rest of the lawn and soil range is in our garden centre, and we're happy to talk through what's actually going to work on your block if you're not sure which way to go.

More on lawns

• How to Plant a Kikuyu Lawn in South Australia
• How to choose the right grass for a South Australian lawn
• What height should you mow your lawn?

I'll take a lawn that repairs its own bare patches over one that needs me to be organised, and anyone who's met me will know exactly why.

Candeece