Turf
Fernline Landscapes lays new lawns for Newcastle and Lake Macquarie backyards on soil that's been dug, levelled and drained first, so the grass roots down instead of dying in its first summer. Where real grass won't grow, we install synthetic turf on a compacted base.
NSW contractor licence, structural landscaping: Lic. 000000C (demo)
A dead lawn on a new house usually tells the same story. It was laid on nothing: a builder's backfill of clay and rubble, a few centimetres of sand on top, and fresh rolls laid straight over it. The grass looks great for a month, then the first run of hot dry days arrives and the roots have nowhere to go.
So the work on your lawn starts below it. We spray or strip the old grass and weeds, rip or cultivate the ground, take out the rubble, and set the levels so the lawn falls away from the house. Then a layer of turf underlay soil, rolled and levelled, and the turf goes down the day it's cut, with tight joins and staggered ends like brickwork.
The right grass depends on your yard: its sun, its soil and who uses it. Soft-leaf buffalo such as Sir Walter handles shade better than most and stays soft underfoot. Couch varieties like TifTuf love full sun, recover quickly from wear and use less water in a dry spell. Kikuyu is hard to kill but runs into every garden bed it can reach. Zoysia grows slowly and needs mowing least often.
We look at how many hours of sun each part of your yard gets, and what the lawn is for, before we recommend one.
If your yard is half sun and half shade, one grass won't always suit both. We'll tell you where a lawn will struggle, and suggest a native planted bed, paving or synthetic turf for that patch instead of selling you rolls that will thin out by autumn.
In clay suburbs like Maryland, Fletcher and Glendale, across Newcastle's western suburbs and the north of the lake, the problem is water that won't leave. A lawn on wet clay goes yellow, gets boggy and turns to mud under the dog. We regrade the yard and lay ag pipe under the wettest parts, running to a pit or a legal discharge point, so the soil drains between storms.
On the sandy ground around Belmont and the coast, it's the opposite. Water runs straight through and takes the nutrients with it, and salt wind dries the leaf. There we work in a richer underlay so the roots hold moisture, and choose a grass that copes with salt.
Some parts of a yard will never grow good grass. The strip between the house and the fence that never sees sun. The area under a big tree that takes all the water. A small courtyard that gets hammered by kids and dogs every day. Synthetic turf in those spots means green all year, no mowing and no mud through the house.
We install it the way we lay paving: we dig out the soil, lay and compact a crushed rock base, shape it so water drains, then roll out the turf, glue and tape the joins, pin the edges and brush in the infill. A base done properly is why it stays flat and doesn't ripple or sink after a few wet months.
Synthetic makes sense in shade, in small spaces, on heavy-wear dog runs, and for anyone who'd rather never mow again. It isn't ideal on a big yard in full afternoon sun, where it gets hot underfoot in summer, or where you want the cooling and soakage a real lawn gives. Plenty of our jobs use both: real grass where the sun is, synthetic in the shady side passage.
Your quote lists the area, the grass variety or synthetic product, the removal of the old lawn, the soil preparation or base, any drainage, the edging, and the clean-up. It's a fixed price. You also get a watering and mowing guide for the first few weeks, so your new lawn gets the best start. Our landscaping cost guide compares real and synthetic turf with the rest of a backyard budget.
The best time to lay a new lawn is spring or early autumn, when it's warm enough for roots to grow and not so hot that the turf dries out on the day. Summer laying works too, with more water. Winter laying is possible, but warm-season grasses sit still until the soil warms up.
As a guide from our own jobs, natural turf laid with soil preparation runs $35 to $55 a square metre + GST. That covers removing the old lawn or weeds, cultivating and levelling, fresh underlay soil, the turf itself and watering in. A sloping or hard-to-reach yard sits at the top of that range. The site visit and the quote are free.
For a yard with some shade, a soft-leaf buffalo like Sir Walter is the usual pick. In full sun with kids and dogs, a couch like TifTuf recovers fast and copes with dry spells. Kikuyu is cheap and tough but spreads into garden beds. Zoysia is slow-growing and needs the least mowing. We match it to your sun, your soil and how the lawn gets used.
Keep foot traffic light for the first two to three weeks while the roots grab hold. Water it every day for the first week or two, then cut back. Once you can't lift a corner of a roll, it's ready for its first mow on a high setting, and after that it's yours to use.
As a guide from our own jobs, synthetic turf runs $90 to $140 a square metre installed, + GST. That includes digging out, a compacted crushed rock base, the turf, joins, edges and infill. The price moves with the pile height and quality you choose, and with how much digging and levelling the yard needs.
Yes. In full sun on a hot Hunter afternoon it gets a lot hotter than real grass, enough to be uncomfortable on bare feet. A quick hose down cools it for a while, and some products run cooler than others. If your yard gets sun all afternoon and the kids play barefoot, we'll talk about whether real grass is the better choice.
It works well for dogs. Water drains straight through the backing into the base, so a hose down after the dog takes care of most of it, and there's no mud and no dug-up patches. We lay it on a free-draining base so it doesn't hold smells, and we can use an infill made for pet areas.
A few photos and a rough idea is enough. We'll ring to book a free site visit, then send a fixed quote with a drawing.