Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

Almost time to sit back and watch the grass grow

Digging out old lawn by hand is a great job - when it's finished. Our little effort took us a day and a half. Then it was time to consider the sprinkler layout. We had a couple of knocker types which had been in place for a few years and were pretty inefficient.

This time I opted for ordinary popups. It meant blocking off the old pipe and putting in a new run. Easy enough when all the lawn is dug up. I hoped one of my plumber sons would volunteer to do the digging. Ha! In my dreams.

Son number two said yesterday morning he would pick up some irrigation pipe for me. That didn't happen by late yesterday afternoon. He'd been too busy. He get it the next day, meaning today, Tuesday.

I wanted to get the job finished yesterday so I could order the grass today. One thing at a time for me with these sort of jobs. I didn't want the grass to turn up early without the site fully prepared.

The grass people I'd first rung last week have a two day lead time, so it was essential that I was ready to order early in the week. Eventually my haranguing persuaded son number three to drive me to a nearby irrigation place to pick up two six metre lengths of pipe and other essential sundries.

Thus fully equipped, I set to with a shovel and soon had the trenches done. Then came the cutting in to the old pipe and setting out and gluing the new stuff. It was warm work and I drank about three litres of water as I went.

I decided to do a test of the sprinkler coverage. The placement of the sprinklers had been guesswork. It all looked pretty good, so I gave my wife and Milly the pup the go ahead to fill in the trenches. It's very relaxing for a man to sit in a comfortable chair with a cool glass of water and watching a woman working with a shovel. The pup was more of a hindrance than a help.

Later I did a bit of levelling, then spread some soil wetting agent on the grey sand. Our sand has a natural water repelling property and can be almost impossible to dampen down in summer. It was as dry as a chip even though we had a deluge all day last Thursday. Before that grass goes down we'll put in another water retaining substance. It's a water absorbent 'crystal.' The tiny 'crystals' swell to a flexible bulb about the size of a pea after watering and the water which has migrated inside them is then accessible to plants in a drought. These will be spread on the soil and the slabs of Sir Walter's grass laid on top.

I nearly forgot to mention there will be another undergrass additive to kick start the lawn - Dynamic Lifter. This is an organic fertiliser which is manufactured in pellet form from chicken manure. I like the smell of manure, but a lot of people don't.

So now all is in readiness. I can order the grass with the confidence that there won't be any fowl-ups, but before I do, I'm just going to go out and check the measurements again.

Done that and ordered the grass - 21 square metres - not 18 as I figured last week.

There are five turf farms which service the Perth metro area and are licensed to grow the soft-buffalo variety Sir Walter. I rang them all for a quote. Three were quickly crossed off my list. One took a stab in the dark at the delivery charge which was higher than the others and said, "That'll do." His delivery time would be about three days, but he couldn't be sure.

Two of the others were not interested in delivering such a 'small' quantity under any circumstances, but I could collect the grass myself if I wished. I wondered to myself why they bothered to be in business at all?

Another grower. Betta, had the cheapest per metre price at $9.90 with delivery of $66 - total $273.90, but it wouldn't arrive until Saturday.

We finally went for Lawn Doctor, which was slightly dearer, but seemed to be the longest established and best organised of all the licensees. They'll have the grass here on Thursday morning - $286 - COD.

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website.

My original still photographs are stored in a cache at my Panoramio website. Most of them have a brief description and a link back to the relevant essay. All the images there can be enlarged several times by clicking them.

About the writer

Click here to see our backyard.

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!