Are you wondering if you should get a landscape gardener to install your artificial grass?

Artificial grass installers are typically split into two camps; landscape gardeners, and companies who specialise in the installation of artificial grass.

Perhaps you already have a landscape gardener who has done some work for you in the past. If so, you may be considering hiring them to install your fake lawn.

However, there could be a very good reason to choose an artificial grass specialist, instead.

As an experienced artificial grass installer (with a background in landscaping), let me explain.

The lay of the land (specialists vs. landscapers)

Let’s take a closer look at the two types of companies that install artificial grass.

As I mentioned above, on one side, we have landscape gardeners. On the other camp, there’s artificial grass specialists – or installers – who dedicate most of their time to installing artificial grass, day-in, day-out.

Some landscape gardeners may have been trading for many years, but may only be jumping on the bandwagon in terms of installing artificial grass. After all, it’s come on in leaps and bounds over the years, and vastly growing in popularity.

Other companies may include the installation of artificial grass as one of the many services they offer, but perhaps only install a handful artificial lawns in a year. It’s not that they’re necessarily going to do a terrible job, but they spend so much of their time on other services that they probably won’t have as much experience installing it in all types of scenarios.

On the other hand, artificial grass specialists solely focusing on fitting fake lawns. It means they’ve had more experience installing fake grass in a variety of different scenarios, and are more aware of all of the ‘Dos & Don’ts’, so it’s less likely for anything to go wrong (and we have seen some cases where jobs have gone awry with landscape gardeners).

Why choose a specialist, and what can you expect?

Well, the first thing you can expect is experience. A specialist artificial grass installer will be able to take a look at your garden and carefully assess the situation, before being able to offer you professionally sound and impartial advice.

This can include advice about making a safe space for children and pets, whether it’ll help solve your drainage issues, and how to get the most affordable option for your budget. You may even be worried about installing on a slope or hill – they can advise about that, too!

Usually, specialists source their own grass, and have their own sample range. As a rule of thumb, this means they have a better quality product than landscape gardeners who may just buy off-the-shelf. They also might not know which product is the most hard-wearing.

By choosing an on-site survey from a specialist, they’ll bring their sample range to you. They’ll be able to tell you the benefits of each grass, according to your individual situation. They can also advise on things such as UV protection, maintenance packages, and how it is tested in accordance to British standards.

Artificial grass specialists spend most of their time installing artificial grass, so they don’t necessarily need to have a knowledge of other landscaping work – but the chances are they’ll have this anyway, as most come from this background.

Specialists will fit edging around the grass when required, and create borders to finish off a customer’s lawn.

However, they may not necessarily carry out any other gardening work, such as planting, or fencing. This is generally down to the individual company (for example, we also do some driveways and patios, and some of our customers like to combine our services for a full solution).

Advice from an artificial grass specialist

I’d always advise choosing a company that specialises in installing artificial grass, because of that extra peace of mind. A quick search online should allow you to check reviews and testimonials. You’ll be able to see plenty of examples to show your chosen company has a good level of experience and knowledge base.

We had a customer recently who had used a landscape gardener to fit them a new, large artificial lawn in their back garden. It was mainly for the kids to play football, and they wanted a useable garden all year round. To them, it was a great investment.

However, not long after their new lawn was fitted, there was puddling and sinking in the middle. The joins of the grass were all pulling apart, and you could see the soil underneath. This was after the kids had only played on it a few times!

Turned out the landscape gardener had put new grass straight on top of the old surface; a mixture of soil and turf. They didn’t dig out the area, or install a sub-base or weed barrier. The grass was joined together with tent pegs rather than a proper join.

As a result, it was a disaster. There was no drainage, and it was a safety hazard that wasn’t really useable at all. Not at all what they signed up for!

This ended up as a very costly fix for the customer, and involved a lot of upset and upheaval. Thankfully, we installed a beautiful new lawn that they can now enjoy with their family.

Conclusion

Unsure of whether you should get an artificial grass installer or a landscape gardener to install your artificial grass? I hope I’ve managed to shed some light on the issue.

Technically, artificial grass specialists or installers will have more experience installing artificial grass, but most will probably still be from a landscaping background. They’ll have more experience, as they dedicate most of their time to installing fake grass.

Got a question about landscape gardeners and artificial grass? Leave me a comment below – I promise to respond!