Lawn seed and making the right choice for your garden lawn
In South Africa the grass of choice for very many years was kikuyu although it suffered from many disadvantages ...
Very greedy feeder and fast grower causing lots of mowing to be done
Not evergreen and went dormant and yellow in Winter
Created thick thatch (that springy feeling when you walked on it)
Extremely invasive to parts of garden where grass should not grow
Did not grow in shade or under trees
Pale yellowish green colour
Could not be planted from seed
Not too long ago a species of grass started to find its way into our country and this type of grass was generically referred to as Tall Fescues. These grass varieties and there are well over 100 distinguish themselves by the following ...
They are evergreen so stay nice and green in our winter months
They are able to grow in full sun and of course for us this is critical
Some are able to be grown in heavy shade as well as full sun and under large trees because they have deep root systems
The appearance and colour was far better than kikuyu
Easily grown from seed making it possible for anybody to easily get a beautiful lawn at low copst
There was one disadvantage of all the tall fescues though .... none could repair damaged patches and such areas had to be re-seeded
During the period 2000 to 2003 Focus started to promote a range of tall fescues to the trade by importing the seed from Australia (via USA) until we discovered a brand new development in Tall Fescue grass seed cultivation. In 2002 the very first and unique Tall fescue called Grande was released in the USA to the market ... this was a vastly superior Tall Fescue grass to others and had a property that no other Tall fescue grass had ... it could repair itself by rhyzomous spreading.
This grass seed was called Grande (pronounced Granday).
I immediately discontinued the Australian inferior seed and packaged Grande under my own Focus brand name. Here's relevant information on the product just as you can read it on the box in which it is sold
Focus Grande the original Turf-Type Tall Fescue with Beneficial Rhyzomes
Focus Grande brings South African marketed turf type tall fescues to a new level.
Tall fescues are well known as excellent low maintenance turf grasses that perform extremely well in dense shade and sunny areas. They are evergreen and need far less water than Kikuyu type grasses.
To date the main problem with high quality tall fescue shade grasses sold in South Africa and all over the world including those previously sold by our own company, Focus Garden Products, has been a very slow ability (if any) to repair bare spots. Just like Focus Grande these products have shown excellent shade and sun tolerance however in the real garden environment where children play and dogs run the lack of self repairing ability was a significant disadvantage for any discerning consumer.
A luscious dark evergreen Focus Grande lawn seed is your perfect choice for all gardens with heavy shade, full sun or a combination of both and is suitable for planting in all parts of South Africa.
Focus Grande is endophyte-enhanced giving it natural resistance to many surface feeding insects such as army worms and aphids. This means less use of pesticides.
Grande first discovered in 1994 and was granted its Plant Variety Protection Certificate (PVP) in April 2000 verifying the varietys distinctness from other tall fescue varieties. A major reason was its unique ability to produce rhizomes and therefore become self-repairing. Focus Grande has been shown to produce rhizomes on up to 67% of the plants grown from seed within 12 weeks after planting. Focus Grande was the worlds first commercially available tall fescue seed with this major advantage.
For further information on Grande please see http://www.sroseed.com/Products/VDSRoyal/Grande.html
IMPORTANT: 3 STEPS TO A BEAUTIFUL GREEN LAWN
1. Prepare the ground by making the soil as fine as possible
2. Add the Focus water retention granules and Phostrogen Slow Release fertilizer blend (inside the box of Grande when you buy it) to the soil, rake in to top 2 to 3 cm of soil and only then 3. Spread the seed evenly and follow the recommended spread rate .. more seed is not always better. By following the instructions you will be adding about 16,000 seeds per sq metre of new ground. The idea is to ensure good contact between soil and seed.
HOW TO PREPARE THE GROUND
1. Rake the soil to create evenly sized soil particles (the finer the better)
2. Evenly spread the water retention granules contained in the separate bag inside the box
3. Rake this blend into top 2 to 3 cm of soil and level the soil again
4. Create shallow furrows by using a rake gently in one direction only
5. Broadcast the seed evenly the simplest way is to take this box or a similar one and puncture the sides with holes big enough to allow the seed to come out when the box is shaken. There is no need to use any kind of mechanical spreading device.
6. When finished rake the seed gently into the top soil by raking in the opposite direction to previously in order to get good seed coverage with soil.
7. Whilst the water retention gel will assist moisture retention during germination do not allow the soil to dry out .. keep it moist in the upper surface at all times during the germination period.
Future Maintenance
All tall fescue lawns prefer to have a leaf height greater than 5 cm (2 inches) and even higher in stress situations like drought. Remember this when you mow your lawn. Do not set the blades too low and especially for the first few cuts while the lawn is becoming well established.
Fertilise regularly using soluble fertilizers like Phostrogen Lawn Food do it the easy way with a hose end feeder. Just add the Phostrogen lawn food to the Handy Feeder attach to a hose pipe and spray.
Caution: do not ingest the white polyacrylamide granules
Grande is the worlds first tall fescue to develop self repair properties through rhizome development
Use Focus Grande and
Be successful
Save Money
Save Time
Save Water
Save Effort
No bare patches . Because it spreads beautifully to cover naturally. A product of the 21st century
Tony Roocroft, the owner of Focus Garden Products, reports that of all the new products the company has introduced over the last 10 years Grande is the most exciting. Grande is the very first tall fescue lawn seed that will succeed in dense shade, full sun and in play areas where the need to cover bare patches without reseeding is important.
Add the benefits of this high purity seed to those of the highly acclaimed Phostrogen brand of fertilizer and the well tested polyacrylamide water rention aid and the product is truly one of the 21st Century as well as being one that will make you the envy of the neighbourhood says Tony
Grows well in the shade of
High walls
Large and tall trees
Even in the shadow of Table Mountain