Artificial Lawns - any opinons ?

MehulLakhani · 16 Mar 2013 at 10:49

Hi All

We have a shoddy, uneven, difficult to cut piece of front garden, about 8m x 3m.

I was thinking about replacing it with artificial grass, and just wondering if anyone had done this before, had any ideas/opinions ? How easy is it to install ?

R

Mehul

bitslice · 16 Mar 2013 at 11:41

Sounds hideous and people will stop to point and stare, unless you live in America.

If it's that bad, dig up the sods, level it properly and returf or reseed.
Wild, top of head guess is that 8x3m of turf would be around £150?

Otherwise most lawns can be levelled over time by adding salt free sand to the hollows and undercutting the high spots.

garak112 · 16 Mar 2013 at 18:10

My girlfriends aunt had this installed and it didn't take a huge amount of time (think it was done in an afternoon).

Procedure seemed to be level the ground, lay some sand, lay grass and then more sand to weigh it down.

It looked ok in summer but ridiculous in the winter because it was so green, felt a bit odd too.

Nightglow · 16 Mar 2013 at 20:03

Stick to real grass.

Glaucus · 17 Mar 2013 at 00:03

Just why.
Either real thing, or pave it.

WillyNelson · 19 Mar 2013 at 16:33

Why don't you lay something more ornamental and lower maintenance than grass as a lawn, like camomile or a low lying thyme. They'd encourage more beneficial insects, look & smell great and only need one or two clippings each year.

div0 · 21 Mar 2013 at 15:55

Too be honest, I always thought this would look totally wrong. But actually, having seen some in the last year or so, it looks a lot better than I imagined.

I still don't think it's something I'd personally consider though.

Prophet · 21 Mar 2013 at 15:59

bitslice said:
Sounds hideous and people will stop to point and stare, unless you live in America.
.

A friend of mine designs artificial sports pitches. Some of the fake stuff he uses look exactly like real grass, to the point they have visual tests against real grass set up.

25 year guaranty, never needs cutting and just basic maintenance to keep it looking good.

May not be for everyone but it certainly won't look hideous.

Kimi · 21 Mar 2013 at 16:18

Great to use for a year round zero maintenance putting green

chief barker · 21 Mar 2013 at 16:39

Glaucus said:
Just why.
Either real thing, or pave it.

Paving is just as bad as artificial grass IMO.

Crisp89 · 21 Mar 2013 at 17:03

There's a house around the corner from where we live that has fake grass, it looks awful lol.

Thought about putting stones down?

bitslice · 21 Mar 2013 at 22:03

Prophet said:
A friend of mine designs artificial sports pitches. Some of the fake stuff he uses look exactly like real grass, to the point they have visual tests against real grass set up.

Yep, I heard it had moved on since they'd first tried it on football pitches, and yes it does look realistic.

It still breaks the principle that a garden is living space, not a Disney gnome infested fantasy. Fine in America where fakery is acceptable, but I still think the concept is abhorrent in England*

*apart from the Cheshire bling palaces where this sort of tat fits right in, along with the marble bathrooms and empty stableblocks.

ci_newman · 22 Mar 2013 at 10:08

For a fair discussion, I think we could do with some pictures of some more recent installs. Does anyone have anything we could see?

Magic_x_uk · 23 Mar 2013 at 23:02

new house just down from mine that has it as the front lawn. Looks gorgeous all year round. Lovely height, colour, nice and dense. Really nice. Bowling green quality.

I only wish I could have my lawns half as good as what that one looks like.

There is obviously different quality ones on the market.