Skip to content
If you’ve spent the colder months dreaming of a vibrant new lawn, spring is the ideal time to lay instant turf in Victoria. As the days get longer, the soil warms up, and new shoots of growth appear, Melbourne property owners planning a new Sir Walter DNA Certified Buffalo lawn, or any other warm-season variety, should act quickly to create a beautiful, healthy lawn that will have time to establish before the extreme heat of summer arrives.
This blog explains why installing turf in spring is the gold standard for achieving optimal results, and provides tips on how to ensure your instant turf installation is a roaring success.
Why Spring is the Perfect Time to Lay Instant Turf in Victoria
With the right preparation and lawn care, you can install turf year-round in Victoria with good results – learn more with our Best Time to Lay Instant Turf guide. However, spring offers the perfect combination of weather conditions to ensure your new turf establishes quickly and thrives.
Ideal Temperatures for Grass Growth
Most popular turf varieties in Victoria are warm-season grasses. This means they do most of their growing when soil temperatures are consistently between 18°C and 24°C. Spring provides this ideal temperature range. In Melbourne, average maximum temperatures climb from around 17°C in September to a pleasant 22°C in November. These mild conditions encourage rapid root development, allowing your new lawn to establish a deep root system before the stresses of high summer heat.
Helpful Natural Rainfall
Spring in Victoria is traditionally a season with reliable natural rainfall. While you will still need a consistent watering regime for the first few weeks, the regular rain helps keep the soil underneath consistently moist. Areas like Geelong and the Mornington Peninsula often see consistent spring showers, which supports a healthy root system and can mean less irrigation is required from you.
A Head Start Before Summer
Laying new turf in spring gives your lawn a crucial head start. By the time the hot days of January and February arrive, a spring-laid lawn will be fully established. Its deep root system will make it more resilient and water-efficient, allowing it to handle the summer heat far better than a lawn laid in December or January, which will require intensive watering to survive. If you’ve got your heart set on a lush green lawn for Christmas, now is the best time of year to lay.
Laying Turf in Spring: Ideal for Every Instant Lawn Variety
Spring is the ideal installation season for all our turf varieties, but here’s how the season’s benefits apply to our most popular types.
Spring is the absolute best time to lay Sir Walter Buffalo Turf in Victoria. As Australia’s favourite lawn, Sir Walter DNA Certified turf is famous for its toughness and shade tolerance, but if you’re laying turf in winter or late autumn, with their cooler temperatures and lower light levels, it will take longer to establish and achieve its full potential for durability. On the other hand, spring or early autumn’s warmer weather and increasing sunlight hours allow it to channel all its energy into developing a strong, deep root system and a thick, broad-blade coverage. This enables it to thrive in shaded areas, especially during the cooler months when the lower angle of the sun means less available light.
If you’re laying Sir Walter turf in spring, you can be confident it will be robust and ready for family barbecues and backyard cricket by the time summer rolls around. Leaving it later and installing Sir Walter turf in summer is always an option, but can be more challenging and requires you to be very conscientious around watering.
TifTuf is known for its incredible drought tolerance, but this is thanks to its deep and extensive root system, which takes time to develop. Installing in the warmer months of spring gives it the perfect runway to establish these roots before the summer heat demands peak performance. Laying TifTuf in spring means you’ll have a beautiful, fine-leaf lawn that is fully prepared to handle the toughest summer weather conditions with minimal water. You can learn more about the benefits of TifTuf vs Sir Walter here.
This variety is the fastest-growing turf in our range, which is why it’s favoured for use in public spaces with professional groundskeepers. While it’s not always the best choice for backyards, if you need to cover a large area and want it to be traffic-ready as quickly as possible (and don’t mind frequent mowing and upkeep), installing Eureka Premium VG Kikuyu turf in spring will give you rapid establishment and fast growth of this naturally vigorous turf variety.
Nullarbor Couch loves full sun and thrives in warmth. A spring start allows it to soak up the increasing daylight hours and establish a dense, green surface. To get that classic, manicured look, it needs to be healthy and strong, and spring provides the ideal conditions to build that strength before the peak growing season.
Spring installation is highly recommended for this premium, slow-growing variety. The extended period of mild, favourable growing conditions gives Sir Grange Zoysia’s roots the maximum amount of time to settle in and grow strong, ensuring this slow-to-establish but sophisticated lawn type looks its absolute best, sooner rather than later.
How to Get the Best Results When Laying Turf in Spring
Your new lawn is a significant but worthwhile investment. Before you start laying, familiarise yourself with these steps and do the necessary preparation work to ensure your turf thrives. Learn more in our comprehensive guide on laying turf for your new lawn.
Soil Preparation
Good preparation is the secret to a healthy and thriving lawn. Before your instant turf arrives, ensure the ground area is cleared of all existing vegetation, grass, weeds, rocks and other debris. If there are existing soil compaction or poor drainage issues.
You need a base of at least 100mm of quality, sandy loam soil. Rake in granular starter fertiliser to the topsoil to ensure your new lawn receives the essential nutrients it needs during the early months. Good soil quality is key to the long-term health of your lawn, so don’t cut corners here.
The Perfect Installation Technique
When your turf is delivered, aim to lay it the same day. Start by laying your turf against a straight edge, like a driveway or path. Lay the turf slabs in a staggered, brickwork pattern to ensure the edges don’t line up and create visible joins. Make sure each slab has good contact with the soil underneath and butts up snugly against the others. Use a turf cutter, hedge trimmer or a shovel to cut the turf slabs to create neat edges around garden beds or stepping stones.
Water, Water, Water!
Regular watering is the most critical step to protect your newly laid turf. Once you’ve laid all the slabs, water your lawn deeply, ensuring every section is thoroughly wet. While spring’s natural rainfall is a huge help, the warmer days and increasing sunlight can dry out new turf quickly, reducing soil moisture retention.
For the first 1-2 weeks, you must ensure the turf and the soil beneath it never dry out. This often means giving a deep watering twice a day: a deep soaking in the early morning, and a second, lighter watering in the late afternoon to keep the lawn hydrated. Automatic irrigation systems can make things easier, allowing you to preset them to water the lawn at specific times.
Keep Off the Grass
As the weather warms up, it’s tempting to get out and enjoy your new lawn immediately, but patience is key. It’s crucial to avoid walking on your new turf for at least the first two to three weeks of spring. The soil is soft and the roots are just beginning to take hold. Foot traffic now can disrupt this process, creating depressions and hindering the root system’s ability to establish. Let it get a firm grip during this prime growing season, and you’ll be rewarded with a tough, durable lawn ready for an active summer.
The First Mow
Thanks to the ideal growing conditions in mid-to-late spring, your lawn will establish faster than in other seasons. Wait until the turf is firmly rooted before mowing for the first time. You can test this by gently trying to lift a corner of a slab; if it holds firm, it’s ready. This will likely be 2-3 weeks after installation. For the first mow, set your mower blades high and never remove more than one-third of the leaf blade. You may need to mow every 5-7 days during the peak growth of late October and November to keep it looking tidy.
Ready to Install Turf This Spring?
If you want a beautiful, green lawn to enjoy this summer, the time to act is now. We can help your boost your home’s value fast with grass varieties that best suit your yard. Laying instant turf in spring provides the ideal conditions for every grass type to establish a healthy, deep root system and prepare for the heat ahead.
Our friendly team is here to help you choose the perfect lawn variety for your home and provide professional advice for your installation. All our instant turf is certified for genetic purity and arrives free of any pest or disease issues, giving you the best chance of a long-lasting, healthy lawn. Contact us today for a free quote on the instant turf for your spring installation.
Check out our lawn care blog for more helpful tips and advice on how to maintain your turf.
