Now I am going to state this up front - I am no fan of artificial lawns. They just don't look as good as a real lawn, and they cost a small furtune to lay PROPERLY. And they are not a 'no maintenence' proposition as most people assume. Moss and weeds will grow on them, through them and around the edges of them. And because plastic does not offer any ecological competition to weeds and moss, they can easily get out of control, and very quickly.

If you engage me to install an artificial lawn for you then I won't do the job on the cheap. I have seen to many examples of what happens to poorly installed artificial lawns. I am a perfectionist and I take pride in my work. So I will never sully my record with the following abominations in landscaping.

Clearly the contractor who laid this artificial turf did so by simply laying it over the existing weed infested soil. With the above expected and foreseeable results. What they should have done is to dig out the soil to a depth of at least 10cm and disposed of it. I would then get some old carpet and lay that over the lowered soil level as weed mat. It is a resonable use of waste material that would otherwise go to landfill. And it is free. Then you backfill with fine road base, make sure it is compacted down and lay the artificial turf over that.

But that is going to take quite a lot of labor to do, with the additional costs of a large rubbish skip to dispose of the soil and quite a lot of road base to replace the soil. And even after that regular weed control will still need to be carried out for the life of the artificial lawn. As you can see from one of the photos the fake grass loses the vibrancy of its initial colour over time due to UV from the sun. So with articial lawns it is all down hill from the time you lay it. And it is neither easy or inexpensive to replace.

In comparison it is rather easy and inexpensive to scatter a thin layer of fresh top soil and sown some more native grass seeds if your native lawn needs to be rejuvenated years down the track. And once well established a native lawn will suppress weed growth very effectively.