The Ongoing Presence of Common Kikuyu

The environmental nuisance of common Kikuyu

Why Common Kikuyu Still Sells

Old style common Kikuyu still remains an ongoing seller on the East Coast of Australia, which is mainly due to it's cheap price when compared to other quality turf grasses. This same popularity also continues due to many people's ongoing knowledge of the grass families of the past, mainly being Buffalo, Kikuyu, Couch and Queensland Blue.

And as times have changed and brought wonderful new additions to our choices of home lawns such as the Zoysia grass lawns, which we believe should be the most common, and is both the lowest maintenance and most environmentally friendly lawn available, it still takes some time for these new lawn types to filter through to Australian homes.

Common Kikuyu still sells under the belief that it is a highly durable grass, which to some degree it is, but the real truth lay in that Kikuyu grows faster than any other grass available, therefore when it gets damaged, it does repair the fastest, but this trait also leads Kikuyu to be the highest maintenance grass type of every other grass available by a long shot.

And the truth is that for most Australians, this is completely unnecessary. For the average Aussie home with kids and a dog, Zoysia, Couch, Queensland Blue and Buffalo are all capable of withstanding this wear and tear.

And all these grasses will withstand and repair from this wear and tear at a fraction of the maintenance required from a common Kikuyu lawn.

Common Kikuyu Is Damaging To The Environment

We've repeated this same fact over and over again on The Lawn Guide, and it's always important to keep mentioning it, common Kikuyu has escaped into the wild in Australia for decades, and coming into centuries.

It's fine seed spreads in the wind and takes hold in all our native areas as well as our neighbours lawns. But it's within the open environment that Kikuyu has caused massive environmental destruction, and it's within these natural environments that common Kikuyu has been declared a noxious weed across the entire country.

And that's why lawn owners must only choose a Male Sterile Kikuyu - because it cannot produce viable seed, it can never spread by it's seed and into the native bushlands of Australia.

Still Need Kikuyu - Choose Male Sterile Kikuyu

Many people really do need a Kikuyu lawn for their homes for even harder playing kids, large pets, and other heavy wear and tear areas which only Kikuyu will keep up with and repair from. And still other people just love Kikuyu.

And it's for these people that they should only ever plant a Male Sterile Kikuyu such as Village Green or Kenda.

The reasons for this are several, these new MSK variants are far better quality, and they are far more environmentally responsible whereby their grass seeds cannot spread into the open environment or to other lawns to cause damage.

Lastly, these new grasses are regulated and controlled, whereas common Kikuyu is totally unregulated, and the homeowner can never know what strain or what mix of Kikuyu strains they are buying whenever they purchase common Kikuyu, which could have any number of naturally occurring strains within the same plot of turf without anyone knowing.

Mixed strains of common Kikuyu will be discussed in another blog post.

Conclusion

In summary, we can only state what has been said earlier, we encourage all Australians to look into all of the wonderful new additions available in Australia today, especially Zoysia, and all of these new lawns will require a fraction of the maintenance, and be a far better lawn than common Kikuyu could ever hope to be.

Remember the added cost of a quality lawn to begin with, will instantly repay the owner and the environment with enormous savings in maintenance, not just over the long term, but also in the short term.

And for everyone who still loves or needs a Kikuyu lawn, then choose Village Green or Kenda, as environmentally friendly and far superior varieties of Male Sterile Kikuyu.

And lets leave common Kikuyu to fade into history.