There are several turf varieties available in Australia. Let’s go through each, keeping in mind your space at home and which grass that would suit.
Buffalo Turf
Buffalo is one of the most commonly naturalised forms of grass and came to
Australia in the 1840s as deck cargo on a ship called the SS Buffalo – hence the name.
Why is Buffalo turf so popular?
It withstands shade. Buffalo is also good in full sun, rarely scalps, there are no underground runners, making garden edging easier, it has good drought tolerance and most types are soft and lush looking.
Advice provided by Todd Layt, Ozbreed Pty Ltd
Palmetto
Less Mowing, Best Winter Colour Buffalo
Palmetto is well known to have the best winter colour, particularly under high incidents of frost. It also required less mowing compared to the other buffalo types in the trial. After a few weeks of holiday, you will not come back to a jungle. Palmetto is good with chemicals, has good wear tolerance, good salt tolerance, is drought tolerant and has excellent disease tolerance.
Sir Walter
A Good All Round Buffalo.
Adequate winter colour, good wear tolerance and good disease tolerance. This is a PBR grass, which means for personal use you can legally buy turf and plant it from runners, but if you do this commercially you would need permission. Sir Walter is a soft Buffalo to lie on.
Sapphire Fine leaf Buffalo
Best for shade, sun, and high traffic areas.
Easily the best looking Buffalo. Sapphire is by far the finest textured buffalo and has received the highest rating for shade quality. High wear, however, is not recommended. Sapphire has about the same winter colour as Sir Walter.
Sapphire has good chemical tolerance for herbicides is very disease tolerant and has reasonable salt tolerance for coastal living, including water front properties.
Shademaster
Best for shade, sun, and high traffic areas.
This grass is now sold quite cheaply as growers are finding there is weak demand. It has terrible winter colour and thatches badly. It does have moderate to good shade tolerance, but you would only buy this grass if you wanted a really cheap grass.
Matilda
Matilda was a seedling derived from ‘Shademaster’ on a Hawkesbury turf farm west of Sydney, NSW. This is a fast growing coarse leaf variety that is a good all-rounder Buffalo. The winter colour of Matilda seems to be similar to Sapphire and Sir Walter.
If you want a good, strong grower or a good wearing buffalo, than this could be for you. Just remember to mow it short or de-thatch it every year or two.
Kings Pride
Similar to Sir Walter, but not as soft.
Before you buy Kings Pride, check that you are happy with its feel under foot. If so, then Kings Pride performs well, similar to Sir Walter in most aspects. It has the fastest spread of any of the grasses listed here, so obviously it will need more garden edging than all the others, but this has positives as well, as it can recover quickly from wear.
Have a high traffic area? This could be good for you.
ST varieties. ST26, 91, 85
These grasses are the most susceptible to chemicals, and seem to suffer disease more easily than the good varieties. Many growers are now replacing them with Sir Walter, Sapphire, Matilda, Kings Pride and Palmetto. If you do not care about performance and just want a cheap grass, then these could be for you.
Have a high traffic area? This could be good for you.
Velvet Buffalo
Velvet Buffalo is only grown in Western Australia as it’s too disease prone to be grown in the rest of the country. It too is losing popularity to the better varieties, but it can still be found in WA.
Common Sydney Buffalo
Common Sydney Buffalo lost its appeal due to its very scratchy leaf and it would be very hard to find on any turf farm now. It may even be extinct as a turf farm grass, so forget this one.
