Choose a Zoysia Lawn Instead of Couch

A Stunning Fine Leaf Zoysia Lawn

Couch versus Zoysia

For anyone considering purchasing a new lawn for their home, Couch is often one of the first grass types to be considered. In this article we're going to look at why Couch has been so popular in Australia, and why anyone considering a Couch lawn should buy Zoysia instead.

Couch Lawns In Australia

Couch has long been used in Australia for home lawns, and is by far one of the most widely used grasses in use today. But if we stop for a moment and consider why, we may see that that the popularity of Couch has not been so for all the right reasons.

Benefits Of Couch

Lets start with the true advantages of owning a Couch lawn. Couch really is a very good all round grass type, it is very cheap to buy, it handles wear and tear very well, repairs itself from damage fast, is quick to grow, has a pleasant fine leaf, and when maintained properly can be a rather easy lawn to get right when it comes to creating a lawn with a nice appearance. Couch is also highly tolerant of almost all pesticides and herbicides, and is highly drought tolerant.

Disadvantages Of Couch

Along with all the advantages of Couch, comes an equally long list of disadvantages, so lets start looking at those because it's with these disadvantages that so many homeowners really run into problems with their Couch lawns.

Couch is highly intolerant of any shade, it requires the most amount of direct sunlight of all the grass types, and will simply drop dead when surrounding trees begin to grow and create too much shade.

Couch is a very fast growing and aggressive grass, this means it requires very frequent lawn mowing, frequent de-thatching (vertimowing), and is always invading garden beds and paths, and if left for too long without mowing, can become very ugly, long and straggly.

Couch is highly susceptible to all lawn diseases, all lawn pests and weeds, and requires ongoing regular lawn fertilising in order to maintain a lush dark green appearance.

Why Couch Is So Popular

It wasn't so long ago when the homeowner in Australia only had a few choices of grass to choose from, with choices being limited to Kikuyu, Couch and the old scratchy Buffalo. For many people Couch was a clear winner in this rather limited race, and so Couch became a well known grass type in Australia for many years.

In these modern times, Couch is mainly purchased for two reasons, first it's because the grass remains well known amongst Australians, and secondly and most importantly is because Couch is so cheap to buy.

Project builders and homeowners alike all across Australia predominately choose Couch because it is simply the cheapest grass to buy. The reason for Couch being so cheap is because it grows so fast and is so aggressive, hence the turf farms can grow a crop of Couch much faster and with less effort and cost than for other grass types.

But it's time to change all of that, and look at Zoysia as the best possible replacement for Couch, and here's why…

Zoysia - A Beautiful, Soft and Low Invasive Lawn

Why Choose Zoysia Over Couch

Zoysia grass such as Compadre, Empress and Empire have all of the advantages of Couch, including having a finer leaf blade, excellent tolerance for chemical sprays such as herbicides and pesticides, can tolerate heat stress and drought, and has good wear and tear properties.

But apart from all of these same advantages that Couch has, Zoysia has even more. Zoysia can tolerate shade much better than Couch (although not as good as Buffalo), it has a very low invasive nature so it won't invade garden beds either as quickly nor as badly as Couch, it grows slower than Couch and so requires less mowing throughout the year and almost no de-thatching at all, it holds it's dark green colour for longer in Winter, and is highly resistant to invasions of lawn grubs such as Sod Webworm and Armyworm.

Building further on the advantages is that Zoysia is a lovely soft lawn, much softer than Couch, and when Couch becomes dry and begins browning off when damaged or under heat stress - it becomes quite prickly under barefoot, whereas Zoysia can still remain rather soft.

Choose Zoysia

With so many of the same advantages of Couch, and having so many more advantages over Couch, the question remains… why would anyone choose Couch over a Zoysia lawn, and as far as this author is concerned, I can only think of a single reason.

Zoysia will not have the same heavy wear and tear resistance as Couch though, so if your lawn is expected to experience heavy wear and tear, the Couch will still be the lawn of choice. This is because Zoysia will repair slower when damaged due to wear, this slower repair rate is directly due to the slower growth rate of Zoysia when compared to Couch.

While some folks may consider the slightly higher outlay to purchase Zoysia over Couch, this is minuscule in the massive amounts of savings to be made over many years of choosing a new Zoysia lawn over Couch. Savings in money in mowing costs, pesticide costs, de-thatching costs and fertiliser costs. As well as savings in time with less time wasted mowing the lawn, treating weeds and lawn diseases, and getting rid of invading grass in your garden beds.

So for any homeowner considering buying Couch as their next lawn, why not take a look at Zoysia instead.

Disclaimer:
The Lawn Guide is independently owned and authored.
All articles on The Lawn Guide are original, unbiased and independent.
The Empire and Nara strains of Zoysia are advertised on The Lawn Guide.