Laying new turf

frijolitas · April 2021

We are proposing to re turf our lawn. Right now half of it has the old turf still on there. We have had quotes from companies to do this. However, they are providing conflicting advice. One company will remove the existing turf completely, including the weed, before rotavating. The other company (considerably cheaper) will eradicate the existing turf by rotavating it into the soil. They suggest that effective weed killer is used first to kill all the weeds. Can anyone advise if there is best practice in this regard? Should we remove the existing turf or not?

cork gardener · April 2021

Hi
I'm not an expert but I recently did the same job and the advice and research I did before hand was unanimous, existing turf should be removed before rotovating.

frijolitas · April 2021

Thanks very much. That was very much our conclusion also but doubted ourselves as the other company is well regarded and assured us it wasn't necessary to remove the existing turf as long as weed killer was put down beforehand. This is reassuring to know!

Obelixx · April 2021

You can probably hire a turf cutter and remove the turf yourself if that helps with costs. Stacked grass to grass and soil to soil in a quiet corner it will break down to make lovely crumbly topsoil to add to your beds.

Make sure when you buy new turf that it does not have a plastic mesh to stabilise it. They'll tell you it breaks down but it won't for years and will end up being microplastics in everybody's food chain and, before then, can get caught up in future years when you need to scarify and has also been known to trap birds and small critters. Utterly unnecessary use of plastics.

Laying new turf

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