Buffalo, kikuyu or couch: how to feed each lawn type

How do you tell buffalo, kikuyu and couch apart?

Most people inherit a lawn rather than choose one, so start here. Pull a runner and look at it.

Grass	How to spot it	Mowing height
Buffalo	Broad, flat, slightly coarse blades folded at the base. Runners sit on top of the soil. Feels sturdy underfoot.	Tall, roughly 35 to 50 mm. It needs leaf to shade its own runners.
Kikuyu	Bright green, soft, fast. Thick runners that climb over paths and into garden beds if you let them.	Medium, roughly 25 to 40 mm.
Couch	Fine, thin blades and a dense mat. Goes off-colour and straw-toned in cold weather, then greens up fast in spring.	Short, roughly 15 to 25 mm. Handles a close cut better than the others.

Zoysia sits alongside couch for feeding purposes: fine leaf, dense mat, slower growing, so treat it like a relaxed couch.

What all three want from a feed

Lawn is leaf, and leaf runs on nitrogen. That makes Medigrow, the nitrogen-led Phase 1 feed, the right bottle for every grass on this list. There is no bloom phase for a lawn, so you are not switching to Medibud partway through the season the way you would with tomatoes or roses.

The rate is 2.5 mL per litre of water for all three, and seedlings or new turf go at half strength, 1.25 mL per litre, weekly, until they are established. One mix, two methods: spray it over the leaf, or water it in at the roots. Both work at the same rate, so pick whichever suits the size of the lawn and the gear in your shed.

Liquid feeding suits lawns for a boring but useful reason. It goes on evenly, and evenness is what separates a lawn that greens up as one piece from one that comes up in stripes. We compared the formats in liquid vs granular fertiliser.

Feeding buffalo, kikuyu and couch side by side

Grass	Rate	Rhythm in the growing season	The thing people get wrong
Buffalo	2.5 mL per litre	Every 2 weeks	Mowing it too short. Scalped buffalo thins out, and thin buffalo takes months to recover no matter how well you feed it.
Kikuyu	2.5 mL per litre	Weekly at peak growth, fortnightly either side of it	Feeding it hard and then not mowing. Kikuyu that gets away from you builds thatch fast.
Couch	2.5 mL per litre	Every 2 weeks	Starting too early. Couch is the slowest to wake from winter, so wait for real growth before the first feed.
New turf or seed, any type	1.25 mL per litre	Weekly until established	Full strength too soon. Half strength and patience wins here.

Does mowing height change how much feed the lawn needs?

It does, and this is the bit that surprises people. Every time you mow you carry nitrogen off the lawn in the clippings. Cut a kikuyu lawn hard every week through summer and you are exporting a lot of leaf, which is part of why kikuyu earns the weekly end of the range while buffalo does fine on fortnightly.

Two practical follow-ons. First, mulch mowing and leaving fine clippings on the lawn returns some of that back, so you are topping up rather than starting from scratch each time. Second, if you have let the lawn get long and then cut it hard, do not feed on the same day. Give it a few days to recover, then feed at the normal rate.

For the seasonal timing around all of this, including when to start and stop, see the spring lawn care checklist.

Common questions

Can I use the same mix on the lawn and the veggie bed?

Yes. Medigrow at 2.5 mL per litre suits lawns, leafy growth, veggies, roots and structure, so one can does the round. Australian natives are the exception worth naming: many are phosphorus-sensitive, so feed those gently and dilute rather than at full lawn rhythm.

Is it safe to let the dog back on straight after?

Medigrow is mineral-based, with no blood and bone, fish meal or manure, so there is no food smell to attract pets to the lawn. It is safe around kids and pets when used as directed. Let the foliage dry after spraying before the dog is back on it.

How far does a bottle go on a lawn?

A 1 L bottle is $32 and makes 400 L of feed, which is 44 feeds at about 73c each. A 5 L is $99 for 2,000 L, so 222 feeds at about 45c. If you are feeding the whole backyard rather than just the lawn, the Medigrow and Medibud bundle is $169 for the 5 L pair, saves $29, and gives you 444 feeds at about 38c each.

Both formulas come from blends trusted by Australian farmers for 25 years, refined for home gardens, made and shipped in Australia. Backed by our 30-Day Growers Guarantee: results or your money back, just reply to your order email. Free shipping over $149 and free express over $249, Australia-wide.