Once a year, August 20 to October 10
The Full Lawn Restoration: six steps, one day.
A full lawn restoration in Oshawa and Durham Region is $600 small, $850 medium and $1,250 large, plus HST, quoted on measured lawn area. We run it August 20 to October 10 only.
- Fully insured
- CVOR registered, the Ontario registration a work truck has to carry
- Fixed price before we start
- No membership needed
Aeration and overseeding in September is the usual answer for a thin lawn, and most of the time it is the right one. This is the job for the lawn that has already had that and is still thin.
Northline is owner operated out of Oshawa, fully insured. I come out and price the lawn myself, and I am the one running the machine when the work happens, so the figure you agree to is the figure on the invoice.
Why this service exists at all
Ontario's cosmetic pesticide ban means nobody can spray a lawn for appearance. Not us, not any competitor, not the national brand with the tanker truck.
So when somebody asks what can be done about the weeds, one honest answer is left, and it is density. A lawn thick enough that weed seed cannot find bare soil does not get weeds, because there is nowhere for them to start.
This service is density. All six steps below exist to put more grass plants into the same square foot of soil, and nothing else in the price is doing anything different.
The six steps, and why each one is there
1. Cut short
Down to about 5 cm from our usual 7.5 cm, with the clippings bagged and taken away. This is the one visit in the year where clippings come off the lawn, because seed has to reach soil.
2. Dethatch, where it measures
A power rake pass to lift dead grass, moss and matted debris. We cut a plug, measure it and show it to you first, because Durham clay compacts rather than building thatch. Under about 1.3 cm we do not run it. The price is the same either way.
3. Core aerate
Two passes at right angles, plugs pulled and left on the surface to break down. On clay this is the step that matters most: it relieves the compaction that is the real reason a lawn goes thin here.
4. Overseed
A cool season blend matched to your sun and shade, broadcast so the seed falls into the open holes. Seed that touches soil grows. Seed that lands on thatch dries out, which is the whole reason steps 1 to 3 happen first.
5. Topdress
About a quarter inch of screened compost over the seed. It holds moisture, shields the seed from birds, and it is the only step that improves the soil itself. It is also the step that decides whether the other five survive, which is why it is in the price rather than offered beside it.
6. Starter feed and a watering plan
A starter fertilizer for root development, and a written schedule we leave with you. Light watering twice a day, morning and evening, 15 to 20 minutes, until it germinates.
The part we do not control, and we would rather say it before you book
The result depends on watering, and we are not there to do it. Two to three weeks of light watering twice a day is the opposite of how you would normally water a lawn, and it is the single reason restorations fail.
The compost is the mitigation. It roughly doubles the window before new seedlings dry out, which is the difference between going away for a weekend and coming back to a dead lawn. That is the honest reason it is in the package rather than sold as an extra.
What it costs, and what moves the number
$600 small, $850 medium, $1,250 large, all plus HST.
Quoted on measured lawn area rather than lot size, because a big lot with a wide driveway and deep beds can carry less grass than a small one. We measure rather than guess, and the price is fixed before anything starts.
That price carries the compost, a premium cool season seed blend, the starter fertilizer, the disposal and the machines. Hiring an aerator and a power rake for a weekend and buying the compost and seed yourself gets you most of the way to the medium price before any work is done.
Which of the three you actually need
Three lawn jobs sound similar and are not, and the right one for your lawn is usually not the most expensive.
Core aeration on its own, from $110 plus HST. The lawn is thick but the ground has gone hard and there are no bare patches.
Aeration with overseeding, from $175 plus HST. The lawn is thin in places but the soil underneath is sound. Open it up, get seed into the holes, done.
The Full Lawn Restoration, from $600 plus HST. The soil itself is the problem: tired, thin, mossy or compacted for more than one season, with aeration already tried.
Buy the cheapest one that solves your problem. If yours is the $110 job, we will say so at the quote.
Why the window is only seven weeks
August 20 to October 10, and nothing outside it.
Cool season grass germinates fastest when the soil is still warm and the air has cooled, and seed sown then gets six to eight weeks of root growth before the ground freezes. Sow in July and the heat takes it. Sow at the end of October and the first freeze and thaw lifts the seedlings out of the ground.
Spring reads well and is the worst of both: the seed goes in behind weeds that are already awake, and the new grass meets its first Ontario August on roots a few weeks old.
Seven weeks is the region's window rather than ours, so book in August. Each restoration is most of a day on one property, so the days are limited.
The towns and neighbourhoods we cover
Oshawa, Whitby, Ajax, Pickering, Bowmanville, Courtice and Clarington. In McLaughlin, O'Neill, Donevan, Pringle Creek and Pickering Village the problem is forty year old clay walked flat under mature shade. In Windfields, Kedron and Prestonvale it is the opposite: a thin skin of topsoil rolled over scraped subsoil. Opposite problems, the same answer, because no amount of fertilizer fixes a lawn with nothing underneath it to grow in.
One off, and not tied to any membership
Book it as a one off. No membership, no commitment, no card on file, and it never goes on a monthly payment. One fixed price, quoted off the measured lawn area, and it does not move because you are a member or because you are not.
What a membership changes is what happens afterwards. A Platinum membership already includes the fertilizer program, aeration and overseeding, which are the three steps that hold the result.
The one question everybody asks about a lawn restoration
Will it get rid of my weeds?
Over a season, yes, and it is the only legal way left. Ontario's cosmetic pesticide ban means no company may spray a lawn for appearance. The only weed control that remains is density, and a restoration is density. It will not clear a lawn overnight the way a spray once did, and anyone who tells you otherwise is describing something they are not allowed to do.
What three of our customers wrote on Google
Every word below is theirs, copied from the public listing. Three reviews, three five star ratings, nothing edited.
“Absolutely wonderful guy to deal with! He cares about improving the look of your property. Does excellent work and I highly recommend him”
“Andrew knocked on my door in Oshawa and I signed up for snow removal before the first storm. He walked the driveway with me, explained exactly when they clear and what happens on a smaller snowfall, and did not dodge a single question about price. Everything was in writing before I signed. I have dealt with plow guys who disappear by January, so knowing my driveway is on a route and I am not chasing anyone at 6 AM is worth it. Will update after the first storm.”
“I was delighted to meet Andrew yesterday. Andrew provided me with a fall cleanup, and I found him to be a very responsible worker. He went above and beyond by doing many extras for me. I also entrusted him with my winter services. I gave him consent to shovel the snow and salt my property for the full season.”
Read all three in full, one page each, or check every word on Google
What a Northline lawn looks like, photographed
Read the caption before the picture: this is a weekly cut and an edge, and it is not a restoration. The first restoration before and after pair goes on this page the day the first one is finished, and not a day before. Drag the line to compare.
If it is not right, we come back
If you are not satisfied with a visit, tell us and we come back and put it right at no extra cost to you. There is no form to fill in, no fee for the return trip and nothing to argue about.
If it is something we cannot put right, we will say so straight rather than keep sending the truck. That is the whole guarantee, and it is short on purpose: a promise you need a page of conditions to read is not a promise.
Andrew answers, October 2026
Why do you cut so high?
Because on Ontario clay a lawn cut short in July is a lawn growing crabgrass in August. Short grass lets light reach the soil surface, and light at the soil surface is the one thing crabgrass seed is waiting for. Cutting high shades it out, keeps the roots deeper and gets the lawn through a dry spell that would otherwise brown it off. It is the single setting that changes the most and it costs nothing.
One of these goes on each page and it is replaced monthly. If the question you have is not here, ask it: 905-244-5779.
Swipe it
A restoration, in six frames
Each frame answers the next question in the order people ask it. The price is on frame five, so getting to it is your decision rather than ours.
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01
The lawn before
Thin, compacted, and more moss and crabgrass than grass. This is what most Durham lawns look like after four or five summers on clay with nothing done to the soil.
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02
The first pass
Core aeration pulls thousands of plugs out and leaves them on the surface. It looks worse before it looks better, and anybody who tells you otherwise has not done one.
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03
The detail
Seed into the holes, compost top dressed over it, starter feed on top. The seed has to touch soil, which is the entire reason the aeration happens first.
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04
The finish
Three weeks of watering to the schedule and the colour comes back. The thickness takes a season, and we will tell you that rather than promise a lawn in two weeks.
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05
What it costs
Full lawn restoration is $600, $850 or $1,250 plus HST by property size. It is sold a la carte, it is in no membership tier, and it happens once a year between August 20 and October 10.
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06
How to start
Send the address. We look at the lawn on the map, tell you whether a restoration is actually the right answer for it, and send a real number the same day.
Frames one to four are real Northline photographs from Oshawa this year. They are not photographs of a finished restoration, because the first one has not been sold yet and we are not going to borrow somebody else’s.
Book a lawn restoration in Oshawa, Whitby, Ajax, Pickering or Bowmanville
You are calling the owner, not a dispatcher. Send me the address with a line about what the lawn is doing, and I will measure it and give you a fixed price the same day. It is a one off job with no membership behind it, and if core aeration on its own would fix yours, I will tell you that instead.
Green in summer. Clear in winter.