The process, in the order it actually happens
1. Site assessment. Before anything is priced, the space is measured and the awkward parts are noted: where water currently sits after rain, where the fall runs, what the edges are (concrete, timber, garden bed, paving), how the material gets in and the spoil gets out, and whether there is irrigation to cap off. A yard reached only through a 900mm side gate is a different job to one with rear lane access, and an honest quote reflects that.
2. Excavation. Existing lawn, roots and topsoil come out to roughly 75mm for a standard residential lawn, or about 100mm where vehicles will run over it or where drainage is poor. Sprinkler lines are capped. This stage generates a surprising volume of spoil, and removing it is a real cost line rather than an afterthought.
3. Base build and drainage. Crushed rock or road base goes in first as the structural layer, wetted and plate-compacted so it locks together. A finer screenings or crusher dust layer is then screeded over the top to give a smooth, level surface with the falls set deliberately towards wherever the water is meant to go. The base is what carries the load and moves the water, so this is the stage that separates a lawn that lasts from one that dips and puddles.
4. Compaction. The base is compacted at least twice, and the target is as hard as it can practically be made. Under-compacted base is the failure most homeowners never see coming, because it looks perfect on handover day and only reveals itself as hollows and soft spots once the ground has been rained on and walked on for a year.
5. Weed membrane. A geotextile weed barrier is laid over the prepared base by many installers, though practice genuinely varies between Australian companies and some regard a correctly built, compacted base as barrier enough. Worth asking which approach your installer takes and why, rather than assuming it is included.
6. Laying and orienting the turf. Rolls are set out and left to relax before cutting. Grain direction matters more than people expect: the fibres lean one way, so the lawn reads a different shade depending on the viewing angle, and every piece has to run the same direction or the change in tone maps out your joins for you. The grain is normally pointed towards the main viewing position.
7. Joins and seam tape. Edges are trimmed back a couple of stitch lines so no factory selvedge is left in the seam, the pieces are butted together rather than overlapped, and synthetic joining tape with adhesive holds them from underneath. Fibres have to be kept out of the adhesive. Cutting is done with a sharp blade changed often, because a blunt knife tears the backing instead of slicing it.
8. Edge fixing and restraints. Perimeters are secured so the turf cannot creep or lift: galvanised pegs or nails at roughly 300mm to 400mm intervals into a prepared edge, and where the turf meets concrete or pavers, turf adhesive rather than pins. On hard surfaces a foam underlay is often added for comfort and to help with minor level variation.
9. Infill and brushing. Kiln-dried silica sand is spread at around 10 to 15 kilograms per square metre and worked into the pile with a power broom. This is not filler. It ballasts the lawn, holds the blades upright, shields the backing and gives the surface its underfoot feel. The brushing pass is what stands the fibres up and makes the joins disappear.
10. Cleanup and handover. Offcuts and spoil are removed, hard surfaces are swept and washed down, and you should be walked through aftercare: brushing, keeping leaf litter off it, and an annual moss and weed treatment. For the fuller version of the build sequence, see how turf installation across Melbourne is scoped and quoted.
Why Melbourne's clay soils change the base build
A great deal of Melbourne sits on reactive clay. Clay soils drain slowly and they move with moisture, swelling when they are wet and shrinking back as they dry, which is exactly the behaviour that punishes a thin or lazily compacted base. Water that cannot soak away has to be taken somewhere, so on clay the base needs enough depth of free-draining crushed rock, graded to a deliberate fall, to move water sideways to an outlet or a garden bed instead of hoping the ground below will absorb it.
This is why the same size lawn can be quoted at meaningfully different prices in different parts of the city. A sandy, free-draining block near the bay is a simpler base problem than a heavy clay backyard in the outer east or south east, and a quote that ignores the difference is not being clever, it is being optimistic. If you are comparing prices between suburbs, our pages on artificial grass in Berwick and synthetic turf in Doncaster put local pricing in context.
The upside is that once the base is right, the winter problem that drove most Melbourne enquiries in the first place is solved at its source. There is no exposed soil left to turn to mud, and no seasonal cycle of bare patches, reseeding and disappointment.
What it costs to lay artificial grass in Melbourne, tier by tier
| Tier | Supply only ($/m²) | Supplied & installed ($/m²) | Typical lifespan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget | $25–40 | $75–95 | 5–8 years |
| Mid | $40–60 | $95–130 | 10–15 years |
| Premium | $60–100+ | $130–160+ | 15–20+ years |
Indicative supply and supplied-and-laid $/m² ranges drawn from published 2025-26 Australian supplier and industry pricing, not from a specific job. An exact figure only comes from a site visit.
Why the installed price sits so far above the supply price
Read those two middle columns against each other and the answer to the most common question on this topic falls out. Budget turf costs roughly $25 to $40 a square metre to supply, but $75 to $95 supplied and laid. Around $50 a square metre of that price has nothing to do with the grass at all. It is excavation, spoil removal, crushed rock, screenings, compaction plant, edging, sand and the hours of the people doing it. Published Australian industry figures put a typical job at roughly 40 per cent materials, 30 per cent base preparation and 30 per cent labour.
That ratio explains something else worth knowing before you compare quotes. Moving up a quality tier changes the turf component but not the ground works, so the jump from budget to mid range costs less than the headline product prices suggest, while the lifespan difference is large (5 to 8 years versus 10 to 15). Paying for premium fibre over a base built badly, on the other hand, is money spent on the one part of the job that was never going to fail first. For the full tier by tier breakdown, see what artificial turf costs per square metre in Melbourne.
Worked examples at real Melbourne yard sizes
Applying the supplied and laid rates above to the yard sizes that come up most often in Melbourne. These are ranges for budgeting, not quotes, and they assume a straightforward site with reasonable access.
- A 25m² courtyard or side yard (townhouse, inner suburbs): roughly $1,875 to $2,375 at budget rates, $2,375 to $3,250 mid range, $3,250 to $4,000 and up at premium. Small jobs often carry a higher effective rate, because the setup, access and minimum plant costs do not shrink with the area.
- A 60m² standard backyard: roughly $4,500 to $5,700 budget, $5,700 to $7,800 mid range, $7,800 to $9,600 and up premium. This is the most common size band we see enquiries for.
- A 120m² family lawn (larger blocks in the growth corridors): roughly $9,000 to $11,400 budget, $11,400 to $15,600 mid range, $15,600 to $19,200 and up premium.
Three things push a real quote above these ranges: difficult access, because everything in and out goes by wheelbarrow; heavy clay or an existing drainage problem, because the base build gets deeper and more involved; and complicated shapes, because curves, tree surrounds and stepping stone cutouts add cutting and edging time that a rectangle does not.
What separates a proper job from a cheap one
Two quotes for the same lawn can differ by thousands, and the difference is almost never the grass. It is the ground works, which are also the part you cannot inspect after handover. The things worth pinning down in writing:
- Excavation depth. Ask for the number. A base built on 30mm of scraped-back topsoil will move.
- Base material and compaction passes. Crushed rock plus a screeded screenings layer, compacted more than once, with plate compaction rather than a rake and a hope.
- How water is meant to leave. There should be an actual answer: falls to a specific point, an outlet, a garden bed. On clay this matters more than anything else in the quote.
- Edge restraint detail. What holds the perimeter down, at what spacing, and what happens where the turf meets concrete.
- Infill rate. Kilograms per square metre, brushed in with a power broom. Under-sanding is invisible on day one and obvious by the following summer.
- Turf specification. Pile height, backing type and the warranty term in years, not just a product name. Australian warranties commonly sit in an 8 to 15 year band and typically cover UV fade and fibre loss rather than base failure.
This is also the honest case against a weekend DIY roll out. The failure point in amateur installs is almost always base preparation rather than the laying, which is why a lawn that looked fine in November is rippled and puddling by the following winter. We compare the two approaches properly in our guide to DIY turf from Bunnings versus a professional install.
Timing: winter wet, shoulder seasons and the spring rush
Turf can be laid year round in Melbourne, but the calendar changes how smoothly it goes. Through a wet winter the ground is heavier to dig, spoil is heavier to cart out, and saturated base material is harder to compact to spec, so a good installer will sometimes wait for the site to dry rather than compromise the build. Autumn and early spring are the comfortable windows.
Then there is the annual pattern anyone in the trade will recognise: enquiries surge in spring, when people decide they want the yard sorted before summer, and lead times stretch accordingly. If a finished lawn by December matters to you, the time to be getting quotes is well before the rush rather than in the middle of it.
One thing that will not change with timing is the water rules, and they are worth knowing because they are part of the case for synthetic in the first place. Victoria's permanent water saving rules apply all year: sprinklers and watering systems may only run between 6pm and 10am, and hand held hoses need a trigger nozzle. There is no rebate anywhere in Australia for replacing lawn with turf, so the water argument is simply the bills and the restrictions you stop dealing with. For a broader overview of options and pricing across the city, start with our main page on artificial turf for Melbourne homes. If you want to know what you are paying for, our walkthrough of artificial grass installation Melbourne covers each stage from site assessment to handover.
Questions about laying artificial grass in Melbourne
What does it cost to lay artificial grass in Melbourne?
Supplied and laid, most Melbourne jobs land between $75 and $160 per square metre depending on the quality tier of the turf and how much work the base needs. Budget product supplied and installed sits around $75 to $95, mid-range around $95 to $130, and premium from about $130 to $160 and up. These are indicative figures drawn from published Australian supplier and industry pricing, not a quote: the only accurate number comes from someone standing in your yard with a tape measure.
Why is the installed price so much higher than the price of the turf itself?
Because the turf is only part of what you are buying. Budget turf might be $25 to $40 per square metre to supply, yet the installed rate is $75 to $95, and the gap is excavation, crushed rock, screenings, compaction, edging, infill and labour. Published Australian industry figures put the split at roughly 40 per cent materials, 30 per cent base preparation and 30 per cent labour. Put simply, you are paying mostly for the ground under the grass.
How deep does the ground have to be excavated?
A typical residential lawn is excavated to around 75mm to make room for the compacted base and the turf itself. Where vehicles will drive on it, or where the ground holds water badly, that goes deeper, commonly to about 100mm. On heavy clay a competent installer will often go deeper again rather than less, because the whole drainage strategy depends on having enough free-draining material above the clay.
Does Melbourne's clay soil actually change how turf should be laid?
Yes. Clay soils are slow draining and they shrink and swell as moisture changes through the seasons, which is exactly the behaviour a rigid, thin base handles badly. The answer is a deeper, properly graded and heavily compacted crushed rock base that carries water sideways to a fall or an outlet instead of relying on the ground below to soak it away. Skipping that is the most common reason a cheap Melbourne install goes soft, uneven or puddled in its second winter.
How long does it take to lay artificial grass on a normal backyard?
Timeframes are not published consistently by Australian installers, so treat any single number with caution. What is reliable is the shape of the job: excavation and base build take the bulk of the time, the turf itself goes down comparatively quickly, and the base has to be compacted properly before anything is laid over it. A quote should tell you how many days on site the installer has allowed, and a suspiciously short answer usually means the base stage is being compressed.
Does the direction the turf is laid really matter?
It does. Synthetic turf has a grain, meaning the fibres lean in one direction, and the lawn reads a slightly different colour depending on which way you view it. Every piece on a job has to run the same way or the joins show as a stripe of contrasting tone. Good practice is to orient the grain towards the main viewing point, usually the back door or the deck, and to plan the roll layout before anything is cut.
How are joins made so they do not show?
The edges are trimmed back a couple of stitch lines so no selvedge remains, the two pieces are butted rather than overlapped, and they are held with synthetic joining tape and adhesive underneath. The critical detail is keeping fibres out of the adhesive, because glue on the blades is what makes a seam glint in the light. Infill brushed in afterwards lifts the pile across the join and is what actually hides it.
What is the infill for and how much goes in?
Kiln-dried silica sand is the standard dressing, applied at roughly 10 to 15 kilograms per square metre and power-broomed down into the pile. It weighs the turf down so it stays flat, holds the blades upright, protects the backing from UV and helps the lawn feel underfoot like a lawn rather than a carpet. Under-sanding is a common corner cut and shows up as a flat, matted look within a season.
When is the best time of year to have it laid in Melbourne?
Autumn and early spring are the easiest windows. Deep winter is workable but wet ground slows excavation and base compaction, and saturated spoil is harder to remove. Spring is when demand peaks because people want the yard finished before summer, so lead times stretch. If you want it done before the warm months, book the quote well ahead of the rush rather than in it.
Is there a rebate or government incentive for replacing lawn with turf?
No. There is no turf replacement rebate offered by any council, water utility or state government in Australia, and any page implying otherwise is wrong. The water case for synthetic turf here is simply the water you stop buying, plus not having to work around Victoria's permanent water saving rules, which restrict sprinklers and watering systems to between 6pm and 10am all year round.
Costing a self-install? We have priced the whole Bunnings range per square metre, plus tape, adhesive, pegs and sand, in our guide to what Bunnings turf costs for a Melbourne backyard.
Related reading
Get a price for laying your lawn
Free and no obligation. Tell us the rough size and we pass it to one vetted local installer who confirms an exact price after seeing the space.
Get a free, no-obligation quote
Tell us a little about your job and we'll pass it to a vetted local installer.