How to maintain your own artificial grass
While artificial grass is sold as a low maintenance alternative to real grass; it still requires some maintenance. Many companies offer maintenance services, but the best and cheapest way is to do it yourself. We'll explain how further in the post.
You technically don't have to maintain the grass however to keep it looking good, and improve the lifespan of your grass. Regular maintenance is heavily recommended. After all, you've just spent a lot of money and time to install it, you want it to last and look beautiful for many years to come.
Maintenance service - worth it or not
Getting a maintenance service from a company may seem ideal, but is it really. You will likely spend £120-£300 for the service and get it done once per year. Only maintaining your grass once a year isn't enough, especially if you have pets. So you'll still need to spend time and money in-between each visit. You may even need to buy the same equipment the maintenance company uses.
Alternatively, you could invest from the beginning in a power brush and up a cleaning kit. After this, all you'll need is a tub of cleaner every 6-12months. All of this may cost you £200-£250 and then £20 to renew your cleaner. And from then on, you can maintain your garden yourself. So the rough cost of 1.5 services, you'll have everything you need to do it yourself… In turn, it's a lot cheaper (and better for the grass) to get the tools and do it yourself.
How to perform a Maintenance
First of all, now you’ve got the gear you need to do the maintenance - you will have two types you will want to do. A routine maintenance, every month or two (more in the summer with pets). And a larger one every 6-12 months.
Routine maintenance
To perform a regular maintenance, get your power brush and run it over the area. Ideally you want a brush with a collection box to clear up all of the loose debris, as well as anything coming out of the grass. Next, mix your artificial grass cleaner and water (using the ratio on the cleaning bottle), ideally in a knapsack but a watering can is also fine too. Give the full area a spray with the cleaner and then go over it again with your powerbrush to give the grass a clean.
You'll also want to keep an eye out for weds embedding themselves into the grass and remove them as soon as you can.
Full maintenance
What you'll need:
Stiff Yard Brush
Access to water
Save with an Artificial Grass Maintenance Kit.
Start off by removing as much debris that is in the garden and pull any weeds that may have started to grow in the pile and around the edges. If you have a power brush with a debris catcher, after you’ve removed all of the big bits, we recommend a quick run over the area with it. If there are some which feel a little more embedded into the pile or patches of moss you'll want to apply a weed or moss killer to the area a few days before giving it a clean to kill off the weeds and/or moss.
Once all of the debris are clear, fill and dilute your cleaner into the spray bottle and douse the entire area. From here, you want to get a brush (stiff or power brush) and brush it into the area and leave it for a bit. From here, you want to thoroughly rinse the cleaner out of the garden. It may take a few attempts of water and brushing to get it out.
Now your area is cleaned, you'll want to let it dry out completely, and then re power brush the area to stand the grass back up. Now the garden should look as good as the day it was installed.