Kikuyu grass is a low maintenance grass. It can tolerate low fertility and high heat. It can recover from drought conditions. Kikuyu grass has a low tolerance for cold temperatures. It has a tendency to "scalp" when mowed short.

Kikuyu originated in the East African highlands. It is a creeping perennial with stolons and rhizomes. It is vigorous, light green grass which grows well in most areas except for coastal where it seems to battle with the humidity. Kikuyu has a high wearability and ability to recuperate as well as a high thatching tendency and establishment vigour. It has poor shade tolerance.
Uses:
Very widely used grass and is available in
sod form almost everywhere for Sports fields / reclamation / road verges /
erosion control / domestic lawns / pastures.

Probably the most common reason for a poor quality lawn is lack of feeding. There are a number of lawn care specialist companies who offer a service to keep your grass in tip-top condition. This consists mainly of applying fertilizer three or four times during the year. By doing this the grass sward is kept dense and growing strongly, so moss and weeds have less opportunity to invade.

To keep the lawn in good condition it must also be cut regularly - at least once a week. If allowed to grow long, the coarser grasses will take over. This is often seen at the edges if they are not kept in trim; tufts of thick-bladed grasses appear and their rhizomes start to invade the flowerbeds. Also when longer grass is cut it suffers shock, becomes whitened and takes some time to recover.
Frequent close cutting thickens the sward leaving no room for weeds to grow. The lowest height of the average lawn in summer, should be about 25mm. In spring, autumn and during drought periods the height should be about 33mm.

When choosing a lawnmower the size of the plot and the quality of finish required are two important factors to consider. A small patch near to the house which just needs to be kept neat will only require the smallest electric rotary mower. A larger area extending further will need a petrol driven rotary machine. If the same plot is laid out in luxury grass, has an even surface and the keeper requires a bowling-green finish, then a traditional cylinder mower is the machine of choice.

Rotary Mower

A rotary mower has a blade mounted horizontally which is spun by the motor. They can be powered by electricity or by a petrol engine and are mounted on a number of deck types. Most run on wheels, but some have a roller which replaces the rear wheels - the roller leaves the classic striped effect. Larger petrol-engined models have a link which drives the wheels or the roller and some have a self-starter. For very large lawns a ride-on mower with a wide cutting swathe will be needed, most have a rotary blade and sometimes two mounted side-by-side.
Most of the rotary models have a grass collecting system, but there are some which have a mulching deck. Instead of having a chute which directs the cuttings into a collector, the blade forces them downwards into the sward where they decompose. This means that the lawn requires less fertilizer and there are no cuttings to dispose of - with the improved fertility, and to reduce the volume of the cuttings, more frequent mowing is necessary. Because the soft cuttings rot away they do not contribute much to the problem of thatch (see below), which is mainly grass stems which have died back and arise to a similar extent in traditionally cut grass.
Another type has a deck which hovers on a cushion of air created by the spinning blade. Earlier models did not collect the grass, but most now do so. Petrol-engined machines use a two-stroke motor as these mowers are recommended for cutting steeper slopes and the engine is lubricated by the fuel mix, not from a sump as in four-stroke models.

The latest development in mowers is a rechargeable, robotic machine with sensors which guide it around, it can keep a small lawn trimmed without human intervention - in theory anyway. It uses a rotary blade and mulches the cuttings.

Cylinder Mower

Cylinder mowers were the first type to be developed and the idea came from the woollen industry as a similar mechanism was used to finish the woven cloth. The blades are mounted on a cylinder in a spiral fashion and cut against another fixed horizontal blade in a scissor action. This arrangement leaves a better quality of finish, but is unable to cope with longer grass so has to be used more frequently than the rotary type. There are small push machines, electric and petrol-engined models. They all have a roller at the rear and the latter machines have a drive link to this roller. Relative to the width of blades, cylinder mowers are more expensive than rotary models.

Whatever the lawnmower it is important to ensure that the blades are sharp, otherwise the cut blades will have a frayed edge which will leave a white sheen over the surface. Although some of the cheaper electric models will always give this result as they use a plastic flail to do the cutting. With petrol driven models the engine should be regularly serviced and the lubricating oil-level checked every few weeks - some engines burn off a little of the oil during use.