Korean Velvet Grass Zoysia tenuifolia

Korean velvet grass is fine leaved, wiry and very dense, and left unmown it does something no other turf grass does: it builds into soft mounded humps rather than a flat plane. The leaf is needle fine, and once the sward closes it is tight enough to shut most weeds out, holding that texture year after year with very little cutting. It is used in Japanese influenced courtyards, over shallow berms, between stepping stones, and as a low input lawn alternative where the look matters more than backyard cricket.

The establishment season that decides it

This is a warm season grass. It greens up as the soil warms, and through a cold winter it browns off and sits dormant until spring, which is normal rather than a fault. Prepare as you would for turf: cultivate, remove weeds and their roots, break up compacted subsoil, then level and firm. Plant plugs or lay tiles close, roughly 15 to 25cm apart, and understand what you are signing up for. The failure mode is the establishment window. This grass is slow off the mark next to couch or the broader leaved zoysias, and the open gaps between plugs have to be weeded and watered through a full growing season before the sward closes over. Skip that and the weeds close the gaps first, at which point the planting never really recovers. Once it has knitted, it is tight, weed resistant and takes light foot traffic without complaint, and drainage matters to it more than fertility. Tiles close over sooner than plugs, which is worth paying attention to on a small courtyard where a season of open soil would be hard to live with.

Velvet grass against a groundcover

The genuine cross-shop is kidney weed. Dichondra is the choice for ground under trees and on the southern side of a house, it establishes with far less fuss and stays green through winter, but it will not take repeated foot traffic. Zoysia is the choice for open ground you actually use, and for the mounded, sculpted surface dichondra cannot give you. If what you want is grass as ornament rather than as a surface, neither is the answer: spear grass is a tussock for banks and drifts, planted to be looked at and not walked on. The other honest option is to run stepping stones through the zoysia rather than asking any groundcover to carry a daily walking route.

Dethatching and a restrained feeding schedule

A mounded planting needs almost nothing for the first few years. After that, thatch builds under the surface and the sward starts to feel spongy, so cut or scarify it hard in mid spring as growth resumes, taking the old material out and letting light back to the crowns. It recovers quickly from that cut at that time of year and slowly from the same cut in autumn, so do not leave it late. Feed lightly in late spring and again in midsummer only, using a slow release lawn fertiliser at a reduced rate, because generous feeding mostly produces more thatch to strip out next spring.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 11 sizes, from 75mm up to 330mm Tiles, priced from $16.95 to $149.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. These are younger plants, priced for planting in quantity, and they establish quickly once in the ground. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to when to plant in Australia.