Impact of Townsville Flood on Gardens & Lawns Surfacing

More than six months after the February flood event, local turf and irrigation specialist William Crabb from Plant-EM said his team was receiving an increasing number of requests for help from residents with flood damaged gardens and/or lawns.

“After a disaster like the February monsoon event, of course the first priority was our homes, but now that insurance claims are moving along and residents are starting to return home those affected are noticing their gardens have also been severely damaged,” Mr Crabb said.

“We’re finding irrigation systems that need repairing or replacing, gardens that have been all but washed away and lawns that have been drowned and are dying.”

Hundreds of homes were inundated by flooding and hundreds more suffered water damage from the unprecedented amount of rain that fell during the event.

Many residents still remain displaced from their homes as the insurance and repair process continues, for many their lawn and garden damage is mostly uninsured.

Mr Crabb said the immense rainfall had impacted soil nutrients which left lawns at risk.

“When a lawn gets too wet and soil lacks nutrients, the grass will not only struggle to grow but weeds will begin to flourish and eventually dominate,” he said.

“Unfortunately, some residents have had to leave their gardens for a long period following the flood and with no rain since, those gardens have dried out and are really sad. The abandoned gardens have suffered the most and the longer they are left the more TLC and expense they will need to be restored.”

Mr Crabb, whose own garden was also completely inundated during the flood said there were some simple tips to help your lawn recover including:

• mowing to reduce excess grass & weeds;
• lift any sunken areas - top dress with sand organic mix;
• add a Calcium product;
• use an organic component;
• include a good general fertiliser - sulphate-based eg. Nitrophaska; and
• watering to achieve optimum soil moisture – use a soil wetter