Greetings from Blueskin Bay, Dunedin

Hi all, I have bought a 15 acre block. 11 acres is virgin lowland bush. The top 4 acres are ex forestry. Trees / stumps have been removed and leveled.
I have a flail mower which has beaten down much of the 'grass' and looks OK however there is a heap of gorse in a large area that has been mown down but surviving. Land is relatively flat to mild slope.
I was told lime may help stunt its growth. To poison would be a mammoth taks... any ideas?
I have also developed maybe an acre of ground, tilled properly and ready to plant lawn. I want to achieve a lawn like a golf course. I will buy a mulching head for my wee Kobota tractor.... any suggestions for type of grass? It will not be watered so must be hardy. Also fertilizer? I will go ask at local garden centre but this is not a 'front lawn' of a 1/4 paradise.
Any suggestions appreciated.
I have also root raked a heap of gorse from along edge of native bush. I will plant this out with natives, what fast growing plants should I use?
Thanks for any advice. I know this will be a mission however it is achievable!

Welcome to the forum.

We farm mammoths by that description.

Greetings from over the hill in Leith Valley

Wow, that's a lot of lawn.

Have you tried talking to Farmlands about seeds and fert? Not the main outlet on the one-way but the one at the end of Andy Bay road up near the BP garage. They seem to be more set up to advise and sell grass seed than say Nichols would be.

For natives, check out Appletons (Nelson) or Southernwoods nursery (Chch). Probably getting rather too late in the season to plant much out now (standard wisdom is to plant in Autumn > early Spring depending on how your ground is over winter), but they might be selling stock off cheap because of this / you can always plan for next year.

A word of caution without wanting to deflate your enthusiasm... gorse and broom are such a bu@@er. Beware of taking on too much in one go and then getting frustrated. I certainly feel sometimes that I get one area sorted only to turn back to another that was all sorted a couple of years ago and finding the gorse has got away again. You can probably dedicate more time than I can so might not be such a big deal but if not, consider accepting that for a year or two you temporarily just keep part of the area under control with some low maintenance flail / mowing or whatever, until other things are sorted and you can focus your efforts on it?

I'm sure you've heard the theory gorse makes a really good nurse plant, fixing nitrogen and providing shelter whilst slower growing natives get going. Not quite sure of how long it takes but the dead gorse buried in our second generation bush are evidence that it really does work if you can stand living with the interim situation.

If you figure out a solution to keeping the border zone between native bush and open ground under control, please let me know. I have a feeling that if you plant the edge, you're in danger of just moving the edge a little further out. I think the most easily managed arrangement on our land are those edges that have densely planted flax. There are still some gorse plants that take off in there and they are really awkward to get to and cut out but at least the gorse is generally smothered enough not to be a big problem and you can get a mower underneath the outer leaves.

Anyway, good luck and let us know how you get on.

good friends of mine had a similar block in Tasman, they used pigs to control gorse and broom....I would contact Ravensdown to get advice on seed and fertiliser.
Don't bother with the mulching head, save your cash and just keep the blades sharp. Plant tree lucerne aka tagasaste and it will smother most other weeds. You can feed it to stock and bees love it!

yes I have done as you suggested. I got 25kg grass seed from Farmlands. They also gave me great advice re fertilizer... tis work in progress that will never end