The short answer: yes, but the slab decides
Artificial turf is a manufactured sheet with a perforated backing. It is indifferent to what sits beneath it, which is why it can be laid over concrete, pavers, timber decking, tiles or a rooftop membrane just as readily as over a prepared base of crushed rock. Nothing in the product rules it out.
What rules it out is a bad slab. On a soil installation the base does two jobs: it gives a flat surface, and it drains, because water passes through the turf backing into a permeable layer and keeps going down. Concrete only does the first job. Water that comes through the turf hits a sealed surface and has to travel sideways to get out. If your slab moves water off itself, the system works well and often better than soil, because there is nothing to sink, rut or turn to mud. If your slab holds water, you have built a shallow tray and covered it with a lid.
So the honest version of this job is: a sound slab with fall is one of the best surfaces you can lay turf on, a slab that ponds is one of the worst, and you can tell which one you have before you spend a cent.
Drainage: the thing to settle before anything else
Do the hose test. Pick a dry day, wet the whole slab down for several minutes as though it were rain, then leave it twenty minutes and look. You want to see water leaving the surface in a clear direction, towards a grate, a garden bed, a step-down or the open edge of the slab. What you do not want to see is a puddle, and a puddle of any size is not cosmetic. That is the spot where water will sit under the turf every time it rains, with no sun and no airflow to shift it. Melbourne's winter makes this a real problem rather than a theoretical one, because between June and September a flat slab in a shaded courtyard may not get a properly dry week for months.
Three other things to check while you are out there. Where does the water go once it leaves the slab, and is that outlet actually clear? An existing grate choked with silt and leaf litter is a common find, and it is far easier to clean or upgrade before the turf covers it than after. Second, are there cracks or a sunken section? Concrete that has settled unevenly often creates a low point that only shows up when it is wet. Third, does the slab drain towards the house? Old paths and slabs sometimes fall back towards a wall, and turf over the top will make that worse by holding moisture against the brickwork.
If the slab has no fall at all, or falls the wrong way, that is a drainage remediation job first and a turf job second. The options depend on the site: a channel drain cut into the slab, a spoon drain or grate at the low edge, a screed or self-levelling topping laid to create fall, a drainage cell layer under the turf where height allows, or in the worst cases breaking out the slab and building a conventional base. None of these are things to discover halfway through a DIY weekend, which is why a slab that ponds is one of the clearest cases for getting a quote from someone who does professional turf installation over a concrete base rather than working it out as you go.
Underlay, adhesive and why you cannot peg into concrete
On a soil base the perimeter of the turf is held down mechanically, with pegs or nails driven into the prepared edge at regular intervals. Concrete takes that option away. You cannot drive a peg into a slab, and drilling and plugging every 300mm is slow, ugly at the edges and, on a balcony, a genuine risk to the waterproof membrane underneath. Punching a hole through a membrane to secure a lawn is a bad trade.
So hard-surface jobs are bonded instead. Turf adhesive runs around the perimeter and along every join, with the fibres kept clear of the glue line so the seam disappears. How much of the field gets glued depends on exposure: a sheltered courtyard often only needs perimeter and joins, while an exposed balcony or rooftop is usually bonded more comprehensively because wind getting under an edge is the failure that actually happens. Either way the slab has to be clean, dry and free of loose material for the adhesive to hold, and a slab covered in moss or old paint is a preparation job before it is a turf job.
Underlay is the other hard-surface specific. A foam underlay under the turf does two useful things: it takes the dead hardness out of the surface so it feels like a lawn rather than a carpeted driveway, and it smooths out minor irregularities so trowel lines and paver edges do not read through the turf. Where children will use the area, a thicker shockpad is the version of this product designed for impact absorption, which is a different specification and worth naming as such when you ask for a quote.
Two details that regularly get missed. Expansion joints in a slab exist because concrete moves, and they will keep moving under your turf, so they need to be accounted for rather than glued rigidly across and forgotten. And every fixed edge, a wall, a step, a threshold or a garden bed, needs a plan for how the turf terminates neatly, because there is no soil to tuck it into.
Courtyards, pavers, balconies and pool surrounds
Paved courtyards. The typical inner Melbourne courtyard is small, shaded by a fence line or a neighbouring wall, and fully paved. Turf over the existing pavers is often the sensible move: no excavation, no wheelbarrows through the house, and no spoil to remove, which is exactly the constraint that makes a normal install expensive on a site with no rear access. The test is stability. Walk the area and rock a few pavers with your foot. Anything that tips, rocks or has sunk relative to its neighbours will keep doing so under the turf, and you will feel every lip. Loose pavers get relaid, badly settled sections get screeded, and wide or uneven joints usually need filling so they do not show as lines through the surface.
Balconies and rooftops. Start with permission, not product. Balconies in Victorian apartment buildings are commonly common property or covered by owners corporation rules on alterations, floor coverings and drainage, and the rules differ building to building, so ask your owners corporation or building manager in writing and keep the reply. Then the technical checks: the drainage outlet on a balcony is a single point, so it must stay accessible and clear, and turf that blocks or buries it is a leak into someone else's apartment waiting to happen. Weight matters on a rooftop, where a shockpad plus infill adds up across an area. And the waterproof membrane is the thing you protect at all costs, which is why balcony work is generally floating or bonded with membrane-safe products rather than fixed mechanically. Published Australian supplier pricing puts balcony and rooftop installation around $90 to $150 per square metre, above general residential rates, reflecting exactly this extra work.
Around pools. A pool surround is usually a concrete or paved apron with fall already built into it, which puts it in the good category before you start. The specific considerations are that the turf will be walked on constantly by wet feet, splash-out water needs to keep reaching the same drainage points it uses now, and chlorinated or salt water will land on the turf routinely. Ask specifically about the backing and how the edge is finished at the coping, because that edge takes more traffic than any other part of the installation.
Heat, and being honest about it
Artificial turf runs hotter than living grass. That is true everywhere, and on a concrete slab it is more true, because the slab has been absorbing heat all day and re-radiates it upward into the turf above. The same product on the same day will be warmer over concrete than over a prepared soil base, and the warmth lingers later into the evening. A west-facing courtyard with brick walls on two sides is the worst version of this and can be genuinely uncomfortable underfoot on a hot summer afternoon.
This is worth planning around rather than talking around. Shade is the strongest lever, whether that is an existing tree, a sail or an awning. Hosing the area down before use cools it noticeably, if only for a while. Lighter-coloured products run cooler than dark ones, which is straightforward physics. Some suppliers market cooling yarns and evaporative infills with specific percentage claims attached; those are the supplier's own claims, so treat them as a reason to ask for their test data rather than as a settled figure. And in Melbourne, context helps: the number of days where this actually bites is small, and for the rest of the year a courtyard that used to be grey concrete or winter-slimy pavers is green and usable.
Is this a DIY job or not?
A hard-surface install is the most DIY-friendly turf job there is, because the stage that defeats most home installers, excavating and compacting a base to a consistent level, has already been done for you by whoever poured the slab. A small, sound, well-draining courtyard with simple square edges is a realistic weekend project for someone comfortable with a Stanley knife and a lot of blade changes. If that describes your space, our comparison of laying Bunnings turf yourself versus hiring an installer sets out where retail rolls stand up and where they do not.
The jobs to hand over are the ones where the slab is the problem rather than the surface. Ponding that needs a drain cut in, a slab falling towards the house, a balcony with a membrane and an owners corporation involved, an area with awkward curves and multiple joins, or anything at a size where a bad glue line will be visible forever. If you want to compare the two paths on price before deciding, see what synthetic turf costs per square metre in Melbourne across the budget, mid and premium tiers. Those figures are indicative and drawn from published Australian supplier and industry data, and a slab with drainage issues sits outside them until someone has looked at it.
We are a quotes and information service, not an installer and not a marketplace. Tell us about the space and the enquiry goes to one vetted local installer who confirms an exact price after seeing it, whether that is artificial turf in Doncaster, a townhouse courtyard needing synthetic grass in Point Cook, or anywhere else we cover for artificial turf in Melbourne. Our page on Melbourne turf installers explains what a proper base looks like, which is where most poor jobs go wrong.
Concrete and paver questions we get asked most
Can you lay artificial grass directly on concrete?
Yes, and it is one of the most common turf jobs in inner Melbourne. The turf itself does not care what is underneath it. The question is never whether it can be done, it is whether the slab you have is a good surface to do it on. A sound slab that sheds water to a drain or a garden bed is close to ideal. A cracked, sunken slab that holds a puddle after rain needs fixing first, because turf will hide the puddle without removing it.
How do I know if my slab drains well enough?
Hose it down for a few minutes on a dry day, then walk away for twenty minutes and come back. If the water has run off to a grate, a garden bed or the edge of the slab and the surface is merely damp, the fall is working. If you can see standing water anywhere, that is exactly where water will sit under your turf, permanently, every time it rains. Melbourne's winter gives you plenty of free tests: look at the slab the morning after heavy rain.
What happens if water ponds under artificial grass on concrete?
The turf stays wet from below, which it cannot do on a properly built soil base where water keeps moving down through the sub-base. Sustained trapped moisture in a shaded courtyard is where you get a musty smell, slime and mould on the backing, and staining that will not brush out. Nothing about the turf causes this. The slab causes it, and the turf makes it invisible until it becomes obvious.
Do I need an underlay or shockpad over concrete?
It is not structurally required, but most installers use a foam underlay on hard surfaces for two reasons. First, comfort: turf laid straight onto concrete feels exactly as hard as concrete, which matters if children play on it or you walk on it barefoot. Second, it evens out minor surface irregularities so trowel marks and paver edges do not telegraph through the turf. A thicker shockpad is a separate product used where impact absorption is the point, such as a play area.
Can I peg artificial grass into concrete?
Not the way you would into soil. On a soil base the perimeter is held by pegs or nails driven at intervals into the prepared edge. Concrete gives you nothing to drive into, and drilling and plugging a slab every 300mm is both slow and a good way to compromise a waterproof membrane on a balcony. The standard method on hard surfaces is turf adhesive at the perimeter and along every join, which is why edge preparation and a clean, dry slab matter far more on a concrete job than a soil one.
Should I glue the whole slab or just the edges?
Practice varies with the site. Perimeter and joins is the common approach on a sheltered courtyard, because it holds the turf flat while leaving the middle free to move slightly with temperature. Fully bonding the sheet is more usual on an exposed balcony or rooftop where wind uplift is the real risk. The wind exposure, the size of the area and whether the turf is trapped under fixed edges all change the answer, so it is worth asking any installer to explain their fixing method rather than assuming.
Does artificial grass over concrete get hotter than turf on a soil base?
Yes. A concrete slab absorbs heat through the day and re-radiates it, so the same product over concrete will run warmer than the same product over a prepared soil base, and the effect carries into the evening. Artificial turf gets hotter than living grass in any case, and can get very hot in full summer sun. On a hard surface the sensible mitigations are the ordinary ones: shade over the area, hosing it down before use on a hot day, choosing a lighter-coloured product, and being realistic that a north or west-facing slab with no shade will be uncomfortable underfoot in the middle of a February afternoon.
Can I lay turf over old pavers instead of lifting them?
Often yes, and it saves a considerable amount of money and mess. The test is whether the pavers are stable. Rock a few with your foot: if individual pavers move, tip or have sunk relative to their neighbours, that movement will continue under the turf and you will feel every lip through the surface. Loose or badly settled pavers should be relaid or the whole area screeded level before turf goes down. Wide or uneven joints usually need filling as well, or they show as lines.
Do I need permission to put turf on my apartment balcony?
Very possibly, and it is the first thing to check rather than the last. Balconies in Victorian apartment buildings are usually common property or subject to owners corporation rules covering alterations, floor coverings, drainage and anything affecting the waterproof membrane. Requirements differ from building to building, so ask your owners corporation or building manager in writing before you buy anything, and keep the answer. Renters need the landlord's approval as well.
Is turf on concrete cheaper than a full soil-base installation?
Usually, because the most expensive stage of a normal install is excavating and building a compacted base, and a sound slab means you are skipping it. Published Australian supplier pricing puts general residential installation around $85 to $140 per square metre and balcony or rooftop work around $90 to $150 per square metre, the higher figure reflecting membrane protection, drainage cells and the cost of getting materials up to a balcony. These are indicative industry figures, not a quote. A slab that needs cutting, grinding or drainage work first can easily cost more than a straightforward lawn.
A courtyard over concrete is the job where a hardware-store roll makes the most sense, so it is worth knowing what the Bunnings turf range costs per square metre before you buy.
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