Kikuyu Grass “Sprouts”

ronbale – posted 25 March 2008 09:43

I live in Southern California and have decided to embrace my kikuyu lawn rather than fight it. I’m very happy with the result with one exception. When the weather warms it sends off little, thin white “sprouts”. I assume they are part of the seed process. Any ideas on how to control them would be most appreciated.

Chaouen – posted 20 October 2008 03:37

Ron, this may be too late but in NZ we mow our Kikuyu home lawns really low- 10-12mm and some ferals think the only way to mow it is to continuosly scalp it. But what low mowing does is lessens the ability of weeds to grow and it thickens up nicely-and the seed heads don’t like that either. Lower the height and sharpen your blades. If you reel mow put some groomers on too, it begs for that.

ronbale – posted 20 October 2008 21:22

quote:Originally posted by Chaouen:Ron, this may be too late but in NZ we mow our Kikuyu home lawns really low- 10-12mm and some ferals think the only way to mow it is to continuosly scalp it. But what low mowing does is lessens the ability of weeds to grow and it thickens up nicely-and the seed heads don’t like that either. Lower the height and sharpen your blades. If you reel mow put some groomers on too, it begs for that.

Thank you. I do reel mow (Mclane 7 blade front throw). What are groomers?

Chaouen – posted 31 October 2008 17:46

They sit in front of your reel and straighten the leaf blades vertically before the reel cuts. They look like blunt verticutting blades spaced approx 15-20mm apart. They are great for stopping Bent grasses and Browntops from running horizontally and Kikuyu needs this too, especially on sports fields where the runners can get very long without putting roots down and on the first game will kick out great hunks of “runners” and leave bare ground underneath.

ronbale – posted 31 October 2008 18:54

Thank you. We’re going into our winter slow growing season. So, I’ll let you know how things are working next spring.