Auckland Landscape: Articles

Build a Ponga Log Fence

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:06:00 +1300

Build a Free-Standing Ponga Fence in 5 Easy Steps

With the right care and conditions, a ponga fence can become a 'living' fence, wprouting fronds or growing plants from seeds lodged in the truck. Whether you would like your ponga fence to become a 'living' fence, or prefer the non-sprouting variety, here are 5 easy steps to building your free-standing* ponga log fence. Enjoy!

Materials

Ponga Logs 2.4 m long (allow approx 6-7 logs per metre of fence)

Spade

Tape Measure and Saw (if you wish to trim the height of the fence)

5 Steps

Dig a strip up to 40cm deep and around 20cm (a spade width) wide. Where an extra strong foundation is required, eg: in pumice soils, dig the strip 50 cm deep.

Set the ponga logs into the ground in a single row, leaving no gap between the logs. Ensure the logs are the right way up ie: with their base in the ground.

Fill the soil in around the logs, compact the soil well.

If you wish, trim the tops to the desired height.

A good watering regime is required, but you do not need to fertilise the fence. Water the fence thoroughly every few days for at least 6 weeks to establish roots. Water the bottom of the fence, not the top.

For a living fence:

- If the fence is in a shady environment it will become self-sufficient.

-if the fence is in a sunny or windy environment, take special care for the first 6 months. Once the fence is established (usually afer it has been through its first winter) ongoing irrigation is requred during dry periods (deep watering twice a week is important during dry periods)

*Please note, if the ponga fence is on a road frontage or boundary fence, in a high traffic area, or in a very exposed, windy area, it will require structural support (not be free-standing).

Source: Build a Ponga Log Fence

Gardening Tips and Jobs for December

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:05:00 +1300

Gardening Tips and Jobs for December

Your gardening tips and jobs for December. A monthly gardening and landscaping guide. Easy to understand subtitles and bulleted instructions to follow. Written by Heather Tait, Compiled by Bridget Bryant

The Vegetable Garden

•   Plant Leeks, by drilling holes with a pencil and just drop them in
•   Water new veggie seedling each day ay the root area
•   Liquid feed around all vegetables and particularly those cropping now
•   You can plant ALL summer crops now, particularly cucumbers, zuccini and capsicum.
•   Big leafy lettuces are now best planted with morning sun only as they scorch.
•   Make sure you’ve got stakes up to 1.8m in for the climbing beans, tomatoes and corn.

Tip: If you are trying crops that you don't eat a lot of, do a little bit of research now about recipes you can try or ways that you can store (long term) your vegetables for a later date. This will mean that you can get the satisfaction of trying new crops, and you can stock up the cupboard or freezer at the same time.

The Flower Garden

• Good summer annuals in the heat are petunias, zinnias, verbenas and cosmos.
• The best annual in the shade is impatiens, although nicotiana (tobacco plants) will tolerate light shade
Tip: Plant now for autumn displays – heleniums, echinaceas and salvias.

The General Garden

• These temperatures get great results from weedkillers.
• Preparing for Mulching: weed around plants – water deeply (otherwise you just lock dry soil), then spread mulch to a layer of up to 100mm.
Tip: Don’t cut back hedges or overhanging trees now – the bright sun will burn foliage.

Lawn Care

• Dig out big perennial weeds by hand or put a tsp of sulphate of ammonia in the middle of them
• Water new lawns deeply once a day.
Tip: Mow often, but set the mower high – if you scalp your lawn it will burn.

Source: Gardening Tips and Jobs for December

Bridget's Vege Patch in December 2011

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:57:00 +1300

Bridget's Vege Patch in December

Get tips and ideas about what to grow in your vegetable garden this December.

I bet you thought that we had forgotten about you... no no no, its just life slightly got the better of us. You know the deal, kids, work, house and all those other things that seem to eat our precious time. Now here we are looking down the barrel of Christmas, my favorite season I must admit, the decorations are always up come the 1st of December in our house.

Our Free Range Chickens

Our New Additions

You will remember that we talked about our desire to keep chickens. After a fair bit of research into council regulations, breeds, and chicken care we have finally realised this dream. We are now the proud owners of 5 chickens. (One for each member of the family) 3 are Brown Shavers named Rocky, Red and Pinkie and 2 are Plymouth Barred Rock named Zebby, and Chook. Brown Shavers are notoriously prolific layers and Plymouth Barred Rock are also a well recognised, slightly more boutiquey layer. Chickens generally lay eggs between 20 and 22 weeks of age, so our wee Plymouth Chicks wont lay until around Christmas, however we are eagerly awaiting our first eggs from the older 3 girls any day now. We will keep you updated through Facebook of their progress.

The chicken coop or rather free range run has also created more veggie garden for me as I have created a garden in front of the fenced run. This is a great place for my pumpkins which can grow along the fence, as well as a few extra beans, tomatoes and some wild flowers, so it all looks very country cottage.

The Main Vegetable Garden

obviously there is an abundance of choice for your veggie garden at this time of the year. your planting choices should be based on what your and your family's preferences are, but to get you started, here is what I have done.

Tomatoes

I have planted two main varieties of tomatoes this year including Sweet 100 (a cherry sized tomato) and a heirloom mid sized variety. In our family we prefer the smaller varieties as we mainly use them for salads and sandwiches. Remember to pinch out laterals which grow from leaf axils. Also remember to check if the varieties you choose require staking, most do, however there is an increasing number of dwarf varieties that do not.

Corgette (Zucchini)

These are high yielding plants so you really only need on per average sized family. Corgettes grow quickly and fairly easily. Once they start producing you really need to pick fruit every day. Things to watch out for is the onset of powdery mildew on the leaves. If you do start to see this you can easily obtain a anti fungal spray from any gardening store, or alternatively spray slightly diluted blue milk to the leaves twice a week.

Lettuces and Bok (Pak) Choy

Keep these rotating, they will grow quickly so pick lettuce leaves often to avoid them bolting. Bok (Pak) Choy do grow quickly and are super yummy in stir fry's or wilted in garlic oil

Cucumber

Again as these vines are high yielding, on per family is usually enough. Cucumbers do take up a fair bit of space so try not to plant them within 1.5 m of anything else.

Eggplant, Capsicums and Chillies

These are all similar in their growth habit. A sunny aspect is important for these and I would tend to plant 2-4 of each, room permitting of course. In the past I have had an abundance of capsicums and chillies, but this will be my first season growing Eggplant, so I'll keep you posted.

Beans

I have opted for dwarf varieties this year, for no reason, just because they looked nice and healthy as seedlings. A combination of green and butter (yellow) is always nice.

Sweetcorn

I always love having sweetcorn in my garden. It just tastes so good. Usually you get 2 cobs per plant so I plant in succession 6 in October, 6 in November and 6 in December, this always gives us a good constant supply, and the bonus is that corn keeps well frozen fresh.

Don't forget the most important rule, to feed your veggies every month with something like a Living Earth liquid compost and make sure that you water through the dry periods.

Any question will be answered, so please don't hesitate to email me bridget@aucklandlandscape.co.nz or post a comment on our facebook page.

Source: Bridget's Vege Patch in December 2011

Giant Atlantic Pumpkin Comp - See Hippos playing with our donated pumpkins

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 +1200

The Auckland Landscape Supplies Giant Atlantic Pumpkin Growing Competition Update.

Giant Atlantic Pumpkin Growing Competition. Watch the Hippos at the Auckland Zoo eating and playing with the pumpkins we donated.

In March we held a judging day for our Giant Atlantic Pumpkin Competition. We had a huge turn out and were surprised at how many truly big pumpkins that were entered.

It was a very successful day and lots of families had fun and received lots of prizes.

We would really like to thank Hillsborough Primary School for hosting the event, the families who gave up their gardens and participated in the long growing season, and Heather Tait and Living Earth who donated products for the day and helped with judging the event.

After the event some of the children kept their pumpkins to try various recipes with, such as pumpkin pie or to make jack'o lanterns. But many others decided to donate their pumpkins to the Auckland Zoo for the Behaviour Enrichment Programmes of the various animals.

The zoo was very excited to receive these giant pumpkins and the keepers of the Hippo River were kind enough to take some footage of the hippos having fun playing with the pumpkins. Please click the link below to check out this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPwrlZJ9fBUHi

Source: Giant Atlantic Pumpkin Comp - See Hippos playing with our donated pumpkins

Winners of the ALS Getting To-It! Competition

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +1300

Auckland Landscape Supplies - Lets Get To-It! Comp

Congratulations to Melissa and Jarrod who won $200 dollars for telling us why they need money for landscaping this Christmas. Here is their story.

“After years of saving we finally managed to buy our first house just over a year ago. The gardens were in terrible shape, but with the help of Auckland Landscape supplies we have just finished our first big project - our front garden (photos attached). After a month of working full weekends we managed to change the jungle that it was into a nice part of our property we can be proud of. Now we are looking at our next big project which will be working on the back garden and building a BBQ area for Christmas Day. A $200 voucher would help us immensely to getting started.” Melissa and Jarrod Christie

Before	After	After (with grass)

There were so many good entries that we decided to have a "Runner up" who we gave $50.00 ALS money to. This winner was Charlotte and Matthew from Sandringham. Here is their story.

"Our small family would dearly love to win this competition as our garden could really do with a tidy up in preparation for arrival my young daughter’s grandparents from Scotland. They are very much into gardens, and might be slightly horrified at the sight of ours at present! We try our best but are not natural “green thumbs”, and don’t have the resources to pour into our garden. The prize would give us the chance to really spruce up the vegetable patch in particular, which would be good for both for our family and the grandparents. " Charlotte and Matthew

Source: Winners of the ALS Getting To-It! Competition

Pumpkin Growing Competition

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Pumpkin Growing Competition

Pumpkin Growing Competition. Giant Atlantic Pumpkin Growin Competiton in Auckland. Enter at the Auckland Home Show.

Purpose:
To get children excited about gardening and especially about growing vegetables. In facilitating a love of gardening and supporting children through this we would like their parents to recognize the name Auckland Landscape Supplies and to associate us with buying all their landscaping needs.

Competition Process:
1. Children from Hillsborough Primary School and any children who visit us at the Walk of Gardens at the Auckland Home Show (8th - 12 September 2010) are invited to get involved in our Pumpkin Growing Competition.

2. They register the childs’ first name, age, suburb and the parent or guardians first name, surname and email address as a contact for the competition.

3. The child then writes their name on a carry box. The child will be given some simple beginning instructions, EG: place your pumpkin seed in a warm, light airy place away from direct sunlight, it will take 10 to 14 days to germinate, once it is germinated give it regular but light watering, when the seedling is 10cm high plant out….)

4. The child takes their box to a potting table.

5. An adult is at the table and chats to the child about their pumpkin seed and what will happen as it grows and how they can best help it.

6. The child is shown how to pot their pumpkin seeds.

7. Child leaves with pumpkin Seeds.

8. At the end of the Homeshow, we send out an email to all the families who registered explaining the timeline for the next 100+ days. (At this point we may send the children who confirm their entry to the competition a present in the post)

9. We will send weekly updates about what could be happening, some tips about how to get the best from your pumpkin, and inviting children to send us some photos and comments which we will post to our website.

10. At the end of 100+ days we have a family fun day at our yard and ask the children and their families to attend with their pumpkin. (Details will be sought about what this will be later)

11. There may be more than one category, eg, Heaviest pumpkin, biggest girth etc…

12. Children and adults win great prizes

Source: Pumpkin Growing Competition

Compost and Garden Mix - Questions and Answers from Living Earth

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Living Earth Compost – The Miracle Ingredient

Compost and Garden Mix. Questions and Answers from Living Earth. There are a lot of choices when it comes to growing mixes. Get the facts.

The key ingredient to the Garden Mix and that Black Gold that we proudly stock at Auckland Landscape Supplies is compost, locally brewed here in Auckland by Living Earth. It is a great story of recycling green waste that normally goes to our local landfills, into high quality growing mixes and you, the home gardener, get to benefit from this!

COMPOSTING AT LIVING EARTH AUCKLAND

Composting is nature’s way of recycling plants to replenish the soil and nourish new plant growth. In nature everything is recycled. As leaves, branches and other plant materials fall to the ground,, micro organisms (“bugs”) decompose them into dark, nutrient rich humus. We can copy nature’s way of recycling by making the garden waste from our homes, parks and businesses into compost.

In our human-made environment, we often upset nature’s recycling system by throwing out greenwaste as if it were normal rubbish. When dumped at the tip, greenwaste takes up greatly needed space. But there is another way…..

Living Earth uses the same method of recycling garden waste that nature does. Here is how we do it.

GREENWASTE

Every day people greenwaste is delivered to our composting site at Puketutu Island so we can turn it into compost. This greenwaste is made up of grass clippings, small tree branches, leaves, weeds and shrubs. It is brought in to us by Auckland Landscape Supplies and garden bag collection companies.

SHREDDING

All the greenwaste is put through our giant shredding machine. This tears the tree branches apart, exposing areas to make it easy for the bugs to feed on and break it down. These woody materials also give the compost pile some structure and helps oxygen move in and out so that the bugs have some air. After shredding, the greenwaste is put into long rows called windrows.

COMPOST WINDROW

First a bit of background…….

Some people say that making compost is like baking a cake. And they’re right! You have to use good ingredients, in the right amounts, mix together carefully and bake it for the correct time. The bugs that feed on the greenwaste need the right mix of brown stuff and green stuff to munch on. They also need air and water to live. Brown stuff is woody branches, dried leaves and sawdust and is high in carbon. Green stuff is grass, green leaves and plants and is high in nitrogen. Carbon provides the bugs with energy and the nitrogen gives them protein for their bodies. The best ‘diet’ for the bugs is 3 to 5 parts carbon (browns) and 1 part nitrogen (greens). This is what people mean when they talk about the carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratio.

Now the bugs start to feed on the greenwaste and break it down, starting first with the sugars and starches found in plants. This feeding frenzy by the bugs causes a lot of heat to be built up in the windrow and this is how the compost gets hot. This heat also kills any weed seeds and diseases that may be present. To do this it takes a temperature of 55 0 Celsius for 3 days. Windrows usually reach 50-65 0 Celsius. After about 90 or 120 days the bugs have turned most of their food into dark rich earthy smelling compost.

TURNING

The windrow pile is turned 3 times in the first 10 days, then at least another 8 times over 10 weeks. This mixing makes sure that cooler material on the outside of the row gets put into the middle, where it can get hot. At Living Earth we use large machines like front end loaders and excavators to turn our windrows.

BARK AND PUMICE FOR PLANTING MIXES

As well as making compost, Living Earth also produces a Garden Mix, a Lawn Mix and a Potting Mix. These are made up of the compost with added bark, pumice and fertilisers.

SCREENING

After it has been tested and OK’d by the lab, the windrow is passed through our screen, which separates out the fine compost from the sticks and branches. The large sticks and branches are ground up to make mulch.

STORAGE

Compost is screened into a shed where it is kept until it is needed for sales.

TESTING

We have a laboratory on site at Living Earth so we can test our compost to make sure it is ready to be sold and that it has the right amount of nutrients in it. Then we keep checking it every week to make sure that everything is OK. We also regularly test our Garden mix, Lawn mix and Potting mix too.

Things that we test for are;

• pH

• nutrients – nitrate and ammonium, a form of nitrogen

• moisture

• weeds

• toxicity – done by a seed germination test

• put a plant in it and see how well it grows.

COMPOSTING FAQ’S

How much greenwaste do you get every year?

Living Earth receives approx 45 000T of greenwaste every year.

Do you need to add bugs to the compost?

No. All the bugs are naturally occurring on the plant material and in the environment.

What type of bugs break down compost?

Main ones are bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes (bacteria that are similar to fungi) and protozoa. Most are very small and can only been seen through a microscope.

Do you add anything to the compost piles?

Nothing is added to speed up the decomposition process. It is entirely natural. Just like humans, the bugs need food, water and oxygen to live and do their work. If these are present in the right amounts, the compost pile will break down OK.

Does it smell bad?

As long as the bugs have plenty of oxygen, there will be no bad smells. This is called aerobic, which means that the composting process has plenty of oxygen available to it. Bad smells happen when the oxygen supply runs out, and a different type of bug starts to grow – one that makes rotten egg smells.

How can you tell it’s ready?

It should be dark brown, smell earthy, and have a fine crumbly texture. This usually takes about 12-14 weeks. At Living Earth it has to pass tests for pH, nutrients (nitrate and ammonium) and be non toxic.

How do you use compost?

Compost or Black Gold is best dug into the soil, where it will help build good soil structure, retain moisture, suppress diseases, and provides plants with nutrients.

What is green waste and where does it come from?

It includes all garden waste produced at homes, in parks and urban gardens. Most of the green waste recycled at transfer stations around the city by home gardeners, landscapers and garden waste collection companies is sent to Puketutu Island to Living Earth’s Composting plant.

How is Living Earth Compost 100% weed-free?

Within a few days the heat generated in the green waste piles reaches a temperature of 55+ degrees. After 3 days at this temperature the seeds are killed off and will not germinate.

What quality standards does Living Earth Compost meet?

Living Earth Compost meets NZ4454, a New Zealand standard that ensures that compost is properly decomposed, free of pathogens and safe to be applied back into your soil. In addition, Living Earth has its own in-house laboratory for testing each batch of compost, plus undertaking growth trials of the compost, so that you, the gardener, can be assured of premium quality when growing your plants.

So it’s good for my garden, but how does it benefit all of Auckland?

Living Earth composts around 40,000 tonnes of green waste each year – that’s recyclable organic matter that doesn’t go into Auckland’s landfills and start to emit Greenhouse gases. And as it’s made locally, it’s not travelling a lot of kilometers in its lifetime, so it doesn’t use up enormous amounts of diesel getting to you!

Written by Elena Izaguirre (Technical Manager) Living Earth and Heather Tait (Sales and Marketing Manager)

Source: Compost and Garden Mix - Questions and Answers from Living Earth

South Island Stones - A Rock Hard Story

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Rock Hard! The story about some of our South Island Stone

South Island Stones - A Rock Hard Story about how our South Island Natural Resource is collected and how we are ensuring the sustainablility for generations to come.

The Origin

Pebble, stone and rock has been in the making for millions of years, originating in the Southern Alp and thus beginning its journey.

These mountains are still being pushed up and ground down by 2 cm per year. Avalanches and floods dislodge and scatter this Rock and Stone Kilometers down through magnificent waterways of Glaciers, rainforests and raging streams before being deposited on the wind sweep beaches of the West Coast of the South Island.

Our supplier works hard to harvest these natural products, so we can bring them to you and with the piece of mind that ensuring the sustainability of this amazing commodity is paramount.

South Island stone offers a range of colours that we don’t often see in our North Island counterparts. This means that you can have the durability of stone with the element of something a little bit unique in our North Island region.

Some of the range we do.

Waitaha Split/Waterworn Paving

The Waitaha stone is sourced from a massive slip that happened in the 1938 earthquake in the Whataroa region. This slip literally made half a mountain fall over into the valley below and now a rugged mountainous steam flows out from it. Almost all the rock is high grade Biotite Holecast Schist -some smothered in Garnets, some that we call green schist and a number of others colours. This gets rumbled down the river to our supplier who then get out the hammer and chisels and start splitting. They work across the river bed hand selecting the best rocks and use the chisel to slice off slabs of paving stone. They then load into a wheel loader bucket which crosses the river bed to the Weststone base on the side of the river. It gets loaded onto a truck and brought back to the Depot in Greymouth where it is all sorted and stacked on pallets ready to be barged to Auckland Landscape Supplies in the North Island.

Beach Stones

These have a much longer journey than the Paving stones before we can extract them. These travel many kilometers down the rivers and are washed out into the Tasman Sea. The Stone is then carried northward and gets washed up onto the beach’s where pickers on 4 wheeler motorbikes can sort though the stone and load into the one tonne sacks that are delivered to Auckland Landscape Supplies yards. With up to 3 million tonnes of silt and aggregate getting washed out of each West Coast River each year into the Mighty Tasman Sea we have no chance of running out.

Have a look at the photo on the left and right. When we tell people that the flat beach stone is hand picked off the beach, they naturally picture in their minds a stony beach which has no sand. (Typical English beach). This is not the case. The flat beach stone is scattered all the way along the beach at a frequency which can be seen in these photos. The pickers walk and drive for miles to harvest enough stone to send to Auckland Landscape Supplies. The resource consent stipulates that no vehicles are allowed on the beach other than a four wheeled quad bike. The quad bikes can hold four buckets at a time and therefore many trips back and forth to the trailer in the car park are required to fulfill an order for Auckland Landscape Supplies. That being said, remember although the supplier has to walk for miles to harvest this particular stone, more gets washed up with every full tide. Stone is constantly being washed into the Tasman via the West Coast rivers.

Omotu Stone

Omotu Stone comes in two sizes 18mm to 40mm and 40mm to 80mm. As mentioned above, New Zealand's Southern Alpes rise by 2cm per year. Now the laws of natural attrition dictate that due to avalanches, floods glacial activity etc, many different types of stone are scattered into many different alpine streams and rivers. As theses rivers make their way down the mountains they join together with other small rivers at multiple points along their journey. Resulting in several large rivers exiting New Zealand's mountanous regions into the sea.

One such river is the mighty Grey River coming out of Greymouth (mouth of the Grey River) Dredged out of the Grey River is thousands and thousands of tonnes of a stone we call Omotu Stone. This stone is made up of many different types of stones originating from different parts of the Alps. They have all rumbled down their feeder rivers and then rumbled down the Grey River to a catchment point where they are pulled from the river, screened into different sizes and then barged up to Auckland on a 6000 tonne barge. The Omotu Stone is then delivered to Auckland Landscape Supplies' yards on large truck and trailer units, this is where it lies in wait to bring a bit of South Island beauty to your little piece of paradise.

Source: South Island Stones - A Rock Hard Story

Lawn Installation and Care

Mon, 24 May 2010 00:00:00 +1200

Installation and Lawn Care

Lawn Installation and Care. How to maintain a healthly lawn. Lawn care information from the experts at Auckland Landscape Supplies and Rolawn.

1. Spray with roundup to kill any existing vegetation. This is especially important if difficult to control grass weeds like paspalum, kikuya or twitch are present.

2. Roto-till or spade the ground to 10 to 15 cm in depth. The root zone needs to be tilled to allow the grass-roots to penetrate.

3. Add soil as necessary to address the final levels to meet paths and edges. Use a good quality lawn-mix soil not garden composts.

4. Consolidate the cultivated ground by trampling, raking and trampling again to settle the soil. Heeling the soil is the best way to ensure the final surface is firm to walk on leaving a foot print but no indentation.

5. Rake and use a lawn-level-board to prepare the final smooth surface removing rocks, roots or large clods.

6. Apply starter fertiliser to stimulate rapid root growth.

Laying the Turf

1. Begin laying along the longest straight edge.

2. Always lay in a straight line, don’t try to bend around corners.

3. Stagger the turf in a brick-like pattern.

4. Press the turf edges and ends firmly together without stretching.

5. Avoid leaving small strips at outer edges as they will not retain moisture.

6. Cut the ends off using a large knife.

7. It is a good idea to stand on boards as you lay the lawn to avoid upsetting the prepared lawn-bed.

8. Keep off the new laid lawn.

Sowing Seeds

1. Sow the seed and pre-plant fertiliser by walking backward across the lawn east-west then again north-south and either hand scatter or use a spreader. (it may be an idea to mix some dry sand, soil or pre-plant fertiliser with the seed to ensure complete coverage is met)

2. Lightly rake the seed into the top 10-25mm of the soil. This helps keep the seed evenly moist during germination and stops those pesky birds making a meal of your hard work

3. Keep the lawn area evenly moist during the germination period as if it dries out at any stage, your strike rate could be severely affected. Best practice is to water morning and afternoon, not during the heat of midday, as any new shoots could burn under water in the sun.

Mowing

1. Begin mowing in 14 to 21 days after laying the new lawn - in the days prior to mowing, reduce irrigation to ensure the ground is firm underfoot.

2. Cut off 1/3 of the length and remove the clippings.

* Mow every 4 to 6 days in the first month and then weekly.

* The mowing height should start a little bit long and then reduce down to the desirable height of 25 mm for fine rye lawns or 35mm for tall fescue lawns.

*In summer the grass should be mown 5 to 10mm longer than when the temperature is cooler”

Feeding

*Begin feeding your lawn approximately 1 month after it was laid. At about 1 month the grass growth rate will slow and the lawn will lose colour indicating its time for the first feed.

    * Only use quality pelletised fertiliser such as the Rolawn Lawn food.
    * Apply 3 to 4 kg per 100 m2 of lawn.
    * Re-apply fertiliser every 2 months.

* If the lawn is lush and has good colour the feed can be delayed however if the soil is poor and the lawn unthrifty then feed it sooner.

Source: Lawn Installation and Care