Continuing my series ‘from the vault’ I bring back a very successful article from 2007 where I discuss one grass type I thoroughly recommend you do NOT grow, cooch.
1 type of grass NOT to grow
Do you like to have an easily maintainable garden? Do you have limited time to spend mowing, weeding and generally keeping your lawn and garden separate? If you answered yes to these questions then do NOT choose ‘Cooch’ grass!
Cooch grass is one of the most popular types of grass chosen in Australia. This is because it grows easily, keeps low so you can get away with less mowing and generally looks ‘good’? So why am I recommending that you don’t grow it?
The main problem with cooch grass is the way it grows. Cooch send its roots down deep, 20-30cm or more and THEN sends runners out to spread the grass. This is problematic because when the cooch runners ‘run’ into a garden then grow up, to remove the cooch is very difficult. It isn’t a simple matter of removing the top, growing grass, you need to dig down and get the roots and runners. This is very difficult of course in a dense garden bed!
Because of the popularity of ‘cooch’ I would say I spend 70% of my time when working for people ‘weeding’ removing cooch from their gardens. Once it gets in a garden it takes over very quickly and, in many cases, becomes a case of ‘management’ rather than removal because it would be impossible to remove the cooch without removing all the plants in the garden and digging up the runners.
I have seen many different ways of ‘preventing’ this problem but in my experience nothing has worked. Short of building a 50cm deep barrier (which is obviously very expensive and impractical) around your garden it is just too hard to stop the cooch runners doing what they are designed to do! So, just don’t grow cooch!
If you have already planted cooch and are having this exact problem the only real way to get rid of it is to find a gardener who is good with poisons to deal with it for you. Sadly this is an expensive exercise because the poisons that have to be used are not only expensive but require the user to wear a full body suit for protection. It is also more difficult when other plants are in close proximity to the grass you want to get rid of. Otherwise you could employ a gardener to try and at least keep the cooch a little managed and stop it from choking the other plants in the garden.
What is my grass suggestion? Well, I prefer buffalo grass, any buffalo grass. Cooch however is the bain of my existence and if I see another ‘cooch’ covered garden bed again it will be too soon:)
Recent Comments