Sorting out an artificial grass front lawn in Longfield

The Brief:

The most important part of any house in my eyes is the front. This is where you make your mind up about what sort of house it is and what it is like inside. The owners of this house in Longfield, Kent have had some works done on their newly built dream home that included an artificial lawn at the front. The photo doesn’t really show how poorly it had been fitted, as close up a whole load of snags/issues became apparent:

• The grass was laid on 4 inches of sharp sand.
• Fixings were all at the wrong levels and some were not even concreted in.
• The grass ran over the edge, there were gaps down one side and numerous odd little bits just pushed in.
• The join was poor and the tape was the wrong side up so it hadn’t stuck properly.

We were asked to sort this out.

Our Work:

I suggested reducing the area to save on cost and also adding a simple hedge to the front to break up the expanse of grass. I am a big fan of using planting along side artificial grass as they work so well together and are good for the environment.

We started from scratch and removed 4 tonnes of sharp sand before building heavily concreted, well thought out fixing timbers. 5 tonnes of type one and 3 tonnes of granno were added before fitting the Spring grass.

A simple border of ‘Red Robin’ will create a nice hedge, as well as a Phormium and some Miscanhthus grass in the far right corner. The owners are going to add cobbles to the empty edges.