Lawns are aesthetic and practical features in a garden landscape - but it’s important to plant the right lawn for your needs and for the local climate.

Low water-use lawns have come a long way in recent years and there are now a range of attractive and beneficial drought tolerant lawns to choose from.

Step 1 is to look and learn. Before planting lawn, take time to study your garden and think about:

Talk to your local turf supplier or garden centre for some expert advice on lawn types.

Lawn Varieties

Warm season grasses and cultivars have the lowest water demand and are drought tolerant, including:

• Common or Bermuda Couch
• Santa Ana Couch
• Windsor Green
• Greenlees Park
• Wintergreen
• CT-2
• Kikuyu.

Other warm season grasses such as Buffalo and Saltene have an intermediate water use rate and are reasonably drought resistant.

Lawn Care

SA Water encourages anyone thinking of establishing a new lawn to contact local turf suppliers or garden centres for advice on how to minimise water use. Here are a few tips:

• Organic matter mixed through the top 15cm of a sandy soil before a lawn is established will improve water holding capacity.
• Your lawn should be fertilised regularly to ensure it stays healthy. Once a year in March or April is the recommended time. Ask you local garden centre to recommend a suitable fertiliser for your lawn.
• Set mowers so that only one third of the leaf area is removed at any one time. Keeping grass longer shades the soil surface and reduces evaporation loss.
• Do not over-water lawns as this can lead to the development of fungal problems.
• “Train” your lawn to use less water. In spring, when your lawn is beginning its new growth, let the topsoil dry out so that the grass roots will be forced to grow deeper and make use of subsoil moisture. Then soak your lawn every 10-14 days (20-25ml). By training your lawn this way it will be able to survive longer in the heat without requiring water.