History of Turf & Lawn

 

A lawn is an area of recreational or amenity land covered with grass maintained at a low, even height. Turf the vegetative matt containing grass plants and some matted roots. Turf is also used to describe the grass of sporting surfaces including racetracks and sportsfields.

Lawn became popular in Europe for the Middle Ages onwards. In the early 1600s the closely cut English lawn that we are all familiar with today was born. Lawn got much more practical to maintain when the lawn mover was invented in the 1850's. The rise in popularity of turf sport such as lawn tennis, croquet, football and rugby helped prompt the spread of the lawn mower.

Toward the end of the 1800's suburbs appeared on the American scene with a focus on lawn landscaping aided by irrigation systems and greatly improved lawn mowers.
Today the USA has a large turf grass production industry. The American turf grass industry has had a large impact on the Australian turf grass industry.

StrathAyr's founder visited the US on a farming scholarship tour in the 1960's and subsequently commenced turf farming in Tasmania in 1967 and Victoria in 1972. StrathAyr pioneered turf farming in cool climate Australia and has provided lawn to many thousands of homes.

History of Lawn in Melbourne - a transitional climate zone.
In the early 1900's many lawn were established using Buffalo grass for it's ability to prosper in the hot dry Summer months.

The Victorian instant turf lawn industry grew out of the sixties and seventies when Victorians tried to emulate English gardens. As a result cool season turf varieties that are green all year round represented the vast majority of turf sold right up until the commencement of the current drought in the late 1990's when warm season turf grasses started to be utilised for home lawn.

While the sporting demand for warm season turf gradually increased through the 1980's and 1990's, the option of having a brown home lawn in winter was not acceptable. The current warm season turf sportsground conversion program introduced by the government to ensure safe playing surfaces for sportsgrounds has had a huge impact in peoples perception of what is an acceptable appearance for a lawn.

The English lawn image is now changing with Victorian's opting for more drought tolerant warm season turf varieties to suit our climate and our water resources.