By Trevor Blake

Your article on the use of native grasses as lawns in the 'Land for Wildlife' newsletter,  has prompted me to throw in my experiences that may assist.   We have been successful in establishing a range of native grasses over a very high percentage of this 1ha. bushland property in the middle of suburbia in an eastern suburb of Melbourne.
I cannot sing the praises of Microlaena stipoides  enough, reliable, tough, drought tolerant, kid proof and attractive.   Even with the dryness of recent years there is always a touch of green evident and at the first sprinkle of rain it turns green.   It gets no artificial watering whatsoever and requires cutting 5-6 times a year.
Various species of Danthonia were mentioned to me as probably  being suitable but on examination I feel they are not as robust as the above and don't have that underground stolon characteristic which is ideal for a tough lawn.  
We had a reasonable component of Microlaena that had been growing here on our block and it had been regenerating naturally.   After the total disturbance of a large area through the construction of a dam we had some pretty significant areas of bare soil to cope with.    My main concern was a large area of freshly spread topsoil that had been redistributed and was ready to erupt with weed species as there was quite a mixture prior to disturbance, unless I acted pretty quickly.   As it turned out we took a right decision in covering all the bare areas with mulch.   This gave us time and the opportunistic weed species were slowed.   We had a supply of Microlaena  that I had been nurturing along our gravel drive and now the transplanting began.   I did a real hair transplant job pugging in hundreds, digging them from anywhere I could find them around the place.   Like any other plants that have just been moved, they require water so make sure they get a drink until they are established.   At the same time I was pulling the weed species before they had the time to seed.   This was time consuming for the first season, gradually tapering off as the good guys spread.   As the supply of grass increased I was able to thicken lean spots and give more attention to areas where weeds were doing well.   On a couple of occasions I resorted to Roundup because I just wasn't winning - these were usually smaller areas so I started again - the rewards were quicker as it was surrounded by good grass.   You may be asking are there any problems in establishing this grass?   Well it can be cut low and it looks good, however if it gets into garden beds it can be a bit of a nuisance with its underground stolons, probably like a number of other species.
November/December is a busy time as this is when most grasses are flowering, but the weeds will seed within a few weeks of germinating, particularly quick colonising species such as Annual Poa and Panic Veldt, and this means constant vigilance from the first rains after summer to when the dry sets in.   Other species, such as Sweet Vernal, flat weeds and thistles are easily removed provided they are not allowed to seed.   Perennial lawn grasses such as creeping bent and rye grasses flower at this time too and make identification easier so I mattock these out as they are good spreaders and need to be dealt with immediately.   Spray would probably work ok but I have limited this to an absolute minimum as frogs are alive and well in the dam, shrieking their heads off most nights and there is no way I am going to chance their demise through runoff.   Any sign of couch grass or kykyu and it is dug out - it will show up over summer/autumn when it becomes active.  Paspalum gets the same treatment and fog grass is pretty easy to remove.   Bulb species are harder to eliminate, the little purple onion grass, Montbretia, angled onion, fresias etc.   We had a good dose of some of these and I used to try for an hour a day and do a square metre at a time and dig systematically.   It takes about 3 years to be sure you've got the lot but I've been at montbretia for 12 years now and almost consider it gone -don't despair this is on a 2.5 acre property.   In fact we have the weeds on the run here and there is only light weeding to do every couple of months, however I have to admit that whenever I am walking around the place I remove them as I see them.  
Be certain to remove the weeds to a compost heap and not drop them back in the garden, I take a bucket around which I find helps.   The really nasty ones like couch, kykyu, the bulbs and creeping bent goes into the trundly.
To obtain supplies of grasses indigenous nurseries are a fine source of local provenance plants and if you can purchase these in thumb pots they are much cheaper if you need quantity.   Microlaena is a prolific seed setter from December to March and collecting quantities is straight forward.   If you walk through areas where it grows during seeding time you will get to know it well as it has the wonderful habit of imbedding itself in your socks and it is not uncommon for people to have to stop and remove them weeks later - believe me.
In recent times I have removed some huge Pittosporum undulatum  from an area that I regard as sealed, ie. an area that has little chance of being flooded with introduced weed seed by wind or whatever from neighbouring properties or weedy sites.   This area is protected by a dense wall of vegetation and the main invasive species are spread by birds such as pittosporum, privet, cottoneaster, blackberry, coprosma etc.   Three sides are protected by areas we had regenerated earlier.   Under the removed trees nothing grew, in fact the big old stringy barks had succumbed years before we arrived.   I believe mainly  from the dominant competition of the Pittosporum who are guzzlers of all water with their spreading surface roots and as many of you know stingybarks cannot stand anything tinkering with their roots and an alteration in the water regime is fatal.   With this cleared area our planting began, not frantically, as we wanted to see if there would be any natural regeneration after 25 years of Pittosporum leaves and there has been - Dianella tasmanica and revoluta, Acrotriche serrulata, Hardenbergia violacea, Bossiaea prostrata, Senecio hispidulus and quadridentatus. Arthropodium strictum, Caesia parviflora, Exocarpus cupressiformis, Danthonia, Themeda triandra, Platylobium formosum, Cassinia aculeata Coprosma quadrifidus, Viola hederacea Lomandra longifolia & filiformis  Hypericum gramineum, Kennedia prostrata, Dichelachne micranthe, Pimelea humilis and several others.
The maintenance regime in this area is high as it is Spring and I do a weeding run weekly, but this will pay off handsomely later as there will be no seed from them and regeneration will be almost pure.
We are constantly experimenting with different approaches to Pittosporum removal.   One technique I used when weeds were more apparent was one of ring-barking  the Pittosporum with a bow-saw, to only the depth of a blade and over the 18 months or so it takes the tree to succumb the light is let in progressively and I can control the weeds at my pace and re-establish grasses etc before complete tree removal.   The shoots below the cut I remove by hand and after a couple of goes the stump is ready to give up when the final cut comes.   Lately with the complete removal of the tree in one hit I spray the stump immediately and no more problems and within 3 months an area can be completely sealed.
Regeneration has been staggering over a 2 year period after total clearing.