Comparison
Do you really need to returf your lawn?
When a lawn has gone patchy, mossy or brown, tearing it out and starting again can feel like the only way to fix it properly. It rarely is. Most lawns in that state still have a grass base worth building on, and renovating one costs a fraction of new turf. Here is how to work out which yours actually needs.
Usually not. Most lawns that look finished still have enough grass left to build on, and renovating one costs a fraction of returfing. Laying new turf professionally runs £10 to £25 per square metre once you count stripping the old lawn, waste removal, ground preparation, turf and labour. It often disappoints too, because turf laid over untreated ground meets the same problems within a season or two. The soil was the real problem. Where a lawn genuinely is past saving, we clear it off and grow a new one from seed, which still costs about half what turf would. Turf is the right answer in three specific situations, and they are listed further down this page.
What returfing actually costs
The turf itself is the cheap part, usually £2.40 to £7 per square metre. The cost sits in everything around it: lifting and disposing of the old lawn, a skip, topsoil where the ground is poor, levelling, and the labour to lay it. A specialist turf layer covers only 30 to 35 square metres a day.
| What you are paying for | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Turf, budget to premium | £2.40 to £7.00 per m² |
| Ground preparation and laying labour | £10 to £20 per m² |
| Skip hire | £150 to £250 |
| Topsoil, where the ground is poor | £45 to £135 per m³ |
| All in | £10 to £25 per m² |
What it costs to fix a lawn instead
| Lawn size | Returf | Full restoration | Heavy renovation | Renovation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100m² | £1,000 to £1,500 | £570 | £400 | £285 |
| 200m² | £2,000 to £3,000 | £940 | £660 | £470 |
| 300m² | £3,000 to £4,500 | £1,310 | £915 | £655 |
| 500m² | £5,000 to £7,500 | £2,000 | £1,400 | £1,000 |
These are our standard prices by lawn size. Condition and access can move them, so we confirm your figure after a free survey. Returfing figures use the lower end of published UK costs. They run to £25 per square metre at the top, which would roughly double that column. Renovation figures include topdressing.
Not sure which one your lawn needs?
Book a free survey. We will measure it, look at what is actually growing there, and tell you honestly, including if that turns out to be turf.
Which one does your lawn need?
It comes down to whether the grass you already have is worth keeping. Nearly always, it is.
- A renovation if there is a decent grass base under the mess. Thin, mossy, compacted, patchy, but the grass that is there is worth thickening up. One visit. This covers most lawns, including plenty that look beyond hope in August.
- A heavy renovation if the weeds have to be cleared before anything is sown. Heavy thatch, moss through most of it, weeds competing with what grass is left. Three visits: we clear the weeds about four weeks ahead, do the main work, then come back to seed anything still thin and give the lawn a full feed and treatment.
- A full restoration where the grass itself is the problem. Coarse, wiry grasses that will never look fine however well they are fed, or weeds too established for selective treatment to shift. Sowing good seed into that just gets outcompeted, so we clear the lawn off and grow a new one.
- Returfing in the three situations below.
Why new turf so often disappoints
Grass grows in soil, not on it. When a lawn thins out, goes mossy or dries to nothing, the reason is almost always underneath: compacted ground, a thatch layer holding water at the surface, or too little soil depth for roots to get down. Stripping the grass off and laying fresh turf over that same ground changes what you can see and none of what caused it. The new turf looks perfect for a season, roots into the same shallow layer, then behaves like the lawn it replaced.
Renovation works the other way round. Scarifying takes out the thatch, fracture-tine aeration heaves and breaks up the compacted layer, organic topdressing builds soil depth, and seed goes into ground that can actually support it.
When a lawn genuinely does need replacing
Usually it is not that the lawn is thin or mossy, it is that the grass growing there is the wrong grass. Coarse, wiry species that stay coarse no matter how well they are fed, or a weed population too established for selective treatment to clear. Overseeding good grass into that is money wasted, because the existing plants outcompete the new seedlings every time.
For those lawns we clear the whole thing off and start again from seed. It runs over four visits across six to eight weeks: we kill the old lawn off, go back over anything that survived, then scarify it right down to bare soil, level out the dips while the surface is open, build a proper seedbed and sow. Three to four weeks later we come back to see how it has germinated, seed anything thin, and feed it.
- Levelling is included, and this is the one job where dips can actually be sorted, because the surface is bare. On a lawn we are keeping, filling a hollow would bury the grass growing in it, so dips can only be improved gradually over several seasons.
- Spring or early autumn only. Seed needs warm soil to get going from bare ground, so April to May or late August to September. Early autumn is better: warm soil and more reliable moisture. Never during a hosepipe ban, because bare soil has nothing shading it and dries out within hours.
- It uses a total weedkiller, unlike a renovation, which only uses selective treatment. It is one application instead of years of treating coarse grasses selectively and losing, which puts far more weedkiller down over time and still does not fix the problem. We will say which product we are using and how long to stay off the lawn. If you would rather no total weedkiller was used, we can lift the old lawn off mechanically instead, which costs more and creates a lot more waste, but it is a genuine option.
- It looks bare for the first two to three weeks. Seed comes through in one to three weeks depending on temperature and knits together over the two months that follow. Watering matters more than anything else you do.
You end up with a new lawn grown in your own soil rather than turf laid on top of it. At 200m² that is £940, against £2,000 to £3,000 to returf the same lawn. Full details on our restoration page →
When returfing genuinely is the right call
There are three situations where we will tell you to lay turf rather than take any of our routes. Two are about time, which is the main thing turf buys you. The third is about ground that will not hold seed still long enough to root.
You need a finished lawn by a set date
A house sale, a wedding, an event. Turf looks finished the day it goes down. A lawn grown from seed needs a full growing season to get there, and no amount of money speeds that up.
It is outside the sowing window and you will not wait
Seed needs warm soil, so sowing runs in spring or early autumn. Turf can go down through most of the year. If it is November and you want green by Christmas, that is turf.
It is a steep slope or a bank
Seed has to stay where you put it long enough to root. On a steep bank, heavy rain washes seed and dressing downhill before that happens. Turf is pegged down and holds from the day it goes on.
If any of those apply, we will say so at the survey and we will not push you towards a renovation instead.
Changing the levels, reshaping the garden or putting in a new patio is not on that list. That is groundworks, and it is a real job, but once the ground is finished the surface can be sown just as easily as it can be turfed. Seed into properly prepared ground gives you a better lawn for less money. The turf is the part you are paying extra for, not the groundworks.
If you do lay turf, ask what is in it. Budget turf tends to be dominated by ryegrass, chosen because it grows fast on the turf farm rather than because it lasts in a garden. We get called out to plenty of lawns that were turfed two or three years ago and have already thinned right back. Whatever goes down, the ground underneath still has to be dealt with first, or the new lawn goes the same way the old one did.
What each one is like to live with
| Aspect | Returfing | Full restoration | Renovation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old lawn removed | Yes, stripped out | Yes, cleared and stripped | No, kept |
| Levelling included | Yes | Yes, dips and hollows | No, gradual only |
| Skip or waste removal | Yes | Yes, included | Quoted separately |
| Works spread over | 1 to 2 days | 6 to 8 weeks | 1 day, or 3 visits if heavy |
| Before normal use | About 6 weeks | About 2 months | 2 to 4 weeks |
| Watering commitment | High, and non-negotiable | High through establishment | Moderate |
Brown does not mean dead
In a dry summer, and particularly under a hosepipe ban, grass protects itself by going dormant. It stops growing, browns off and waits. It looks finished. In most cases it is not, and it comes back on its own once rain returns and temperatures drop.
This is the worst possible moment to decide to rip a lawn out. Every year, lawns get stripped and returfed in August that would have recovered by October on their own. If yours has browned off in the heat, the honest advice is to wait for autumn and judge it then. More on how a brown lawn recovers →
The bit that actually decides how your lawn looks next summer
Whichever route you take, the year afterwards matters more than the work itself. New turf with no feeding, no aeration and no attention to moss goes the same way as the lawn it replaced, just more slowly. That is the most common reason people end up returfing twice.
Work followed by regular treatment through the year is what produces a lawn that keeps improving rather than sliding back. Most customers have the work done once, then move onto The Lawn Care Plan to hold the results.
On the plan, the work your lawn needs is included. The Lawn Care Plan covers five visits a year with a renovation built in, and if your lawn needs the heavier three-visit version, that is included too at no extra cost. Only a full restoration, where we replace the lawn entirely, is charged separately.
Lawns we did not replace
Bare new-build clay to thick striped lawn
Wickham Bishops, CM8
Weed-infested to clean, thick lawn
Danbury, CM3
Thatchy and mossy to thick striped lawn
Chelmsford, CM2
Common questions
Is renovating really cheaper than returfing?
What if my lawn really is too far gone?
How bad does a lawn have to be before returfing is the only option?
My lawn is completely brown. Is it dead?
Will a renovation sort out bumps and dips?
How long until it looks good?
Can you do this any time of year?
Will you tell me if I actually do need turf?
Find out what your lawn actually needs
Book a free survey. We will measure it, look at what is actually growing there, and tell you honestly which route makes sense. Usually that is a renovation rather than anything drastic. If it is turf, we will say so.
Free survey · No obligation · No hard sell