Everybody wants the perfect lawn which looks as good as a bowling green without all the hard work.
Riley’s Super Sports couch
There is a new lawn available, Riley’s Super Sports, which is a couch lawn. It stays green in winters, tolerates traffic and requires little mowing. The lawn is fine textured and requires little care to keep it looking good. It was developed by Rod Riley and is a dwarf sport of his Greenlees Couch.
Advantages:
mostly horizontal growth and so even in summer it may only need mowing once every few weeks.
recovers quickly from damage
very low seed head production and infrequent flowering which makes it good for allergy sufferers
drought tolerant
tolerant of heavy wear and traffic
the most shade tolerant of all the couch lawns
quite cold tolerant, staying reasonably green in winter even after frost if kept short and well fed coming into winter
Care and maintenance:
well drained site
should be laid on 100-150mm (4-6″) of sandy loam which is especially important in a shaded position
feed small amounts of fertilizer regularly
always mow to the same mower height setting regardless of how much leaf is removed
Price and availability
Riley’s Super Sports couch is available from the following suppliers;
Sydney Windsor Turf Supplies
Phone: (02) 4577 2550
Cost: $4 per square metre plus delivery, available now
Adelaide Golden Grove Garden Centre
Phone: (08) 8251 1111
Cost: $4.70 per square metre including delivery and will be available from November.
Brisbane Twin View Turf
Phone: (07) 5496 7393
Cost: $3.90 plus delivery and will be available mid December.
Note: This is a new variety which hasn’t had years of testing and was still under trial in Perth, Melbourne, Canberra and Cairns.
