Grassland degradation and desertification directly affect the functions and services of the grassland ecosystem. Vegetation restoration is one of the essential measures for the restoration and control of sandy land, but little research has been conducted to investigate the effectiveness and optimal modes of typical ecological restorations in sandy grassland. In this paper, we combined field investigation and laboratory analysis to compare the grass community, soil physical and chemical properties between the severe sandy grassland as a control (CK) and three typical ecological restoration measures, including fencing enclosure (FE), Salix cupularis sandy barrier (SCSB) and Salix cupularis sandy barrier plus planting grasses (SCSBPPG), in the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China. The results are as follows: (1) Compared with CK, the grass coverage, aboveground biomass, Margalef richness index and Shannon-Weiner diversity index significantly increased by 13.54, 13, 3.09 and 1.80 times with FE, respectively, and by 11.24, 10.50, 1.05 and 0.83 times with SCSBPPG, respectively (P < 0.05); while SCSB had no significant influence on the four indexes. (2) The soil bulk density presented no significant differences among the three typical ecological restoration measures. Soil moisture distribution showed a similar pattern (SCSBPPG > FE > SCSB) in the soil layer of 0-10 cm, 10-20 cm and 20-30 cm. At the same time, soil moisture content in SCSBPPG and FE had the most significant increase in the soil layer of 0-10 cm, 244.90% and 176.92%, respectively (P < 0.05) while there was no significant difference between CK and SCSB (P > 0.05). (3) The value of pH in this study area ranged from 5.74 to 6.21. FE and SCSBPPG had significantly reduced the soil pH value of three soil layers from 0 to 30 cm compared to CK (P < 0.05). Besides, the soil organic matter, total N, total P, and total K contents of three soil layers in the soil profile under the three ecological restoration measures had the same descending order (FE > SCSBPPG > SCSB). The soil organic matter, total N and total P of FE and SCSBPPG were significantly higher than that of CK in the three soil layers, and the maximum increase came at the 10-20 cm soil layer. The soil organic matter, total N and total P of FE had the maximum rate of increase of 243.62%, 93.94%, 68.97%, respectively while that of SCSBPPG had the maximum rate of increase of 118.46%, 45.45%, and 41.38%, respectively. SCSB significantly decreased the amount of soil organic matter, total N, and total P in the three soil layers (P < 0.05). Therefore, fencing enclosure is more conducive to restore the light sandy grassland while the restoration of severe sandy grassland may need to combine shrub and grass planting measures in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Our results could provide evidences for the recovery and sustainable management of sandy land.