Vaughan Gunson: This summer's abundance of kikuyu grass is the stuff of nightmares

Kikuyu grass has given Vaughan Gunson a headache this summer. Photo / NZME

OPINION

I've had nightmares about kikuyu grass this summer. Those tendrils reaching out underneath the fence line were snaking their way into my brain, infiltrating my dreams.

At the height of the hot, damp weather in February and March, I wasn't coping. The kikuyu was thriving, going ballistic. Go to work, come home, and it had grown by a foot.

That soccer ball on the grass that was there in the morning, gone in the afternoon. Lost completely.

The only option was to sell the house and abandon the small piece of land I'd leased from a neighbour to plant an orchard and move to an apartment.

You think I'm being overly dramatic?

If you don't have a kikuyu lawn, you can't understand.

If you do, you'll know what I'm describing. I know the battle you've waged this summer. Having to mow the lawns twice a week or see your house disappear under the green tide.

In Hikurangi, kikuyu has grown like I've never experienced it in 20-odd years. We're warming up, and this East African grass is loving it.

The old kikuyu paddock where I've planted an orchard had been kept trim by the nibbling sheep and grass-tugging goats.

The goats and sheep couldn't be trusted with the small trees and saplings, so onwards the grass grew. The fledgling trees were disappearing under the kikuyu reaching itself for the sky.

The kunekune pig I bought - bless her - to eat the grass, wasn't making a dent in this explosion of photosynthesis.

I should have hefted the mower up there earlier, but I left it too late. The grass was now out of control. And thick and dense at the roots, like a forest of bamboo.

Despairing, I did what I had always vowed not to do, I bought a weedeater. A petrol-guzzling, carbon-emitting, industrial manufactured grass-slashing machine.

It's a low point in my attempts to lead a more carbon-conscious life.

But what choice did I have?

I can hear a chorus of farmers asking the same question.

A backbreaking assault on the dug-in kikuyu on orchard hill has seen the trees re-emerge. Some are a metre high, though you would not have guessed before.

The weedeater was a revelation around the house, too. Instead of pulling out by hand the grass growing over paths, along fence lines and around trees, I simply waved the whirling and wailing instrument over the problem areas.

I couldn't help but admire its efficiency. What might have taken me most of the day previously, I did in less than an hour. That's some savings. My nightmares eased.

And then I tried something new. I raked up the thick strands of grass and applied them directly to the vegetable gardens, along with my mower clippings. Before, I would have dumped the clippings in the compost bin.

But after seeing grass clippings used to mulch vegetable gardens on the Northland Edible Garden Trail, I changed my approach. Thus I reimagined rampant kikuyu as a boon, not a pestilent weed. The wealth of organic material could be put to good use.

It's working. The grass mulch on my gardens has turned into a soft golden-brown carpet that is a pleasure to walk on in bare feet. The weeds are being suppressed, worms are more evident, and moisture is being maintained, so I'm watering less. My plants are healthier.

The trees in the orchard are looking better, too, with a kikuyu mulch at their base. At least I can see them.

And I can tell myself that their thickening trunks are offsetting the emissions of my mower and weedeater.

That's how it's meant to work, isn't it?