Many years ago I planted a new lawn for the verge of the new property I had just moved into. The area was only small, a part with high sun, a part with medium shade, and a part with high shade. I would have liked to have planted a Zoysia lawn here at the time, however common sense and knowledge of lawn varieties led me to rule that option out, as Zoysia would have died out in the highest shade level areas. The only real option was a Buffalo lawn which would survive the high shade areas and would be okay in the other areas too. At the time I chose a Sapphire Buffalo lawn.
My experiences with Sapphire were kind of love and hate and trouble all mixed in together, until the day that the trouble was so overwhelming for so long that it was time for a divorce. When the lawn was at its best it could look really good, though like most other normal people I don’t dedicate my life to meticulous lawn care practices every day, and the result was much the same as anyone else would see who doesn’t manicure their lawns as their life’s purpose. The lawn was okay, no real complaints, though I hated the colour of the grass, which had what I considered as an awful bluish tinge to it.
The more love and money and nutrients and so forth I poured into the lawn, the more that unwanted gaudy bluish tinge went away to be replaced by a decent green colour… as I said, love and hate and trouble.
After a few years the lawn started developing disease issues, which I put a lot of time and effort into managing, with fungicides, sanitising lawn mowing equipment, fertilisers and other soil treatments. This fight against this disease infestation would continue to be a losing battle for me as its severity raged and waned in cycles over years. And because the lawn was constantly under attack by disease, so too would that bluish tinge remain on the grass, which I always abhorred.
In the meantime, another enormous issue had appeared to attack my lawn too, it was from my own error from when I first laid the new lawn. I never put down a barrier to my neighbour’s lawn which was Couch, and was infested by Kikuyu and other weeds. Yes, I would eventually have to battle against my lawn being invaded by common Kikuyu, Couch, weeds, and disease. It was a nightmare. I went to extremes to deal with these issues with constant wins and losses and constantly wasting money and with the inevitable return of all of these problems, until one day after many years, I had had enough and I ripped out the old Sapphire lawn completely.
I would have to replace it with a Buffalo lawn of another variety, one which I knew was superior to the old Sapphire I had removed and was certainly 1,000 miles ahead of the awful Sir Walter. I won’t name that Buffalo brand here as I don’t want to give any sort of promotion of any kind to any turf marketing companies.
This time I also chose not to give any of my hard earned money over to something so expensive and so redundant as buying roll on turf, when the same thing could be gotten absolutely free, and with far less effort and time than the alternative. I did what all of our forebears did, I grabbed some lawn runners from a lawn variety that I wanted, and planted them into my own yard. Free, and almost no effort at all.
The Nice Green Colour
Some photos of the nice green colour I could achieve whenever I wanted to treat my lawn like a princess, while throwing loads of time and money and products onto it... which I really had no interest in doing.
The Awful Blue Colour I Always Hated
When I just wanted to leave my lawn to be a lawn, it would always turn to the bluish hue. I hated it.
Prior Attempts At Repair
These are some photos of the extremes I went to in trying to dig out the invading Couch and common Kikuyu which had overtaken my Buffalo lawn. As I said… a lot of time and effort, wasted, over years.
as you can see - this repair happened during a time when I had the lawn lush and green again - cycles
Couch and Common Kikuyu Invading My Buffalo Lawn
The other problems I was battling all the time, along with disease, were these awful invaders from next door.
Lawn Disease
I dealt with lawn disease for at least the last couple of years in its worst, though with minor infractions in earlier years. The earlier attacks were subdued, but the last attack just destroyed my lawn, and every attempt to repair the damage and all the money wasted, was in vain.
this was long after the first lawn repairs I did
it was time to say goodbye to my horribly diseased Sapphire lawn and the garden it destroyed
Final Restoration
At the moment I decided that I’d had enough of this old lawn with all of its constant problems, and that it was time to remove it and replace it entirely, these are the steps I went through to achieve that end. Digging out the lawn with a garden fork in it’s entirety, putting down a mulch barrier to the neighbour’s lawn, and planting new Buffalo lawn runners of a superior variety, with a far nicer green colour, for free !!
the effort required is a fraction of putting down new roll on turf
Recovery Stages
The moment I had my fit of rage and decided to remove the old lawn was at the start of Winter 2025. This was when I also planted the new Buffalo lawn runners, which as most readers should be aware of, won’t produce a new lawn over the Winter months. I knew I would have to wait until Spring before the new lawn would begin to start spreading and growing, however in the meantime in the temperate Perth climate I knew that the roots of the new runners would continue to be kept safe and would establish over Winter as I waited for Spring to arrive. I had to put up with a bare front verge for a few months, but who cares, it’s not anything important.
As I now publish this article at the beginning of Spring 2025, the lawn runners are taking off for the first time, and spreading nicely. As the lawn establishes, for free, I’ll update these images later with the results of my new (free) Buffalo lawn.
Stay tuned for more photos soon !!
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