To astro turf my garden?

[hibbledobble]

I put beautiful turf down and it's sadly looks like the pennines now: bumpy and lots of dead patches.

Astro turf would mean minimal maintenance and would look good, not good for environment though and pricey.

Wibu to astro turf it? If not, how does one maintain a lawn?

Ach, feed it, seed it, mow it on highest setting, don't scalp it, put a sprinkler on it if it's looking dry or if you seed, the beauty of grass is it grows and rights itself quite quickly.

Don't get a fake lawn, it's seldom good, you always know it's fake and there is something quite sad and office block about it. Fix what you have, it's not difficult.

It looks artificially green can spot it a mile off and it is prickly to touch. So no i wouldnt

Don't do it!

It's so naff. I can't believe anyone would prefer walking on astro turf to grass.

Do you not care about the environment at all?

My neighbours have had one laid as they were reaching their late 70s and begining to struggle with their mobility. The garden looks beautiful with well kept shrub layers and flowers around the perimeter, and they went for a quality turf with realistic colour.

There are small lawns that spend more time wrestling with a mower than actual mowing, and shady lawns that will never have a good green coating of grass. I can understand the attraction of artificial turf on such plots.

You may as well buy plastic flowers too. That'll be the next thing you see. It'll end up being a sterile environment, they probably start selling anti bac astro turf solution.

Please don't. How can you think about replacing a living, breathing eco system with a lump of plastic. Fucking awful. Bad for wildlife too.
No wonder a lot of our wildlife is suffering. I have a small garden with an unperfect lawn, yet there are birds feeding fledglings from what they find in it, and the visiting hedgehogs snuffle about in it too. It's a living piece of the planet and I love it.

OK, if you want a pristine lawn it takes a bit of maintainance, but I'd rather have a lawn (no matter how untidy) than lawn carpet! I'd go as far as say I wouldn't buy a property with astroturf unless the sellers paid to have it removed and laid to lawn; it's awful plastic stuff. I saw some the other day and recoiled, it looked so fake and awful.

You may as well buy plastic flowers too. That'll be the next thing you see. It'll end up being a sterile environment, they probably start selling anti bac astro turf solution
Yes, then people will be buying plastic insects and birds to put amongst them when there's nothing alive any more because all the habitat and food sources have been destroyed. I honestly thought people were becomeong more environmentally aware and then I hear about astoturf!

I LOVE the idea that lawns are great for the environment. They're terrible for the environment, almost as bad as astroturf. They are thirsty, if you want one that's pretty you need chemicals.

Have at look at some 'no lawn' solutions. Native stuff, less flat space, using other surfaces responsibly; there are loads of interesting things you can do. I'm aiming for a clover/herd/moss 'lawn' as soon as I can.

I still get loads of wildlife in my garden. The evidence is on my vegetables getting munched away, bird poop on the kids toys. My garden doesn't drain properly so no matter how much we tried (for 4 years) to get any type of grass to grow and stay it just didn't happen the soil is full of clay and rubbish from previous people burying their renos. Even when we moved in it was a mud pit we gave up in the end. Most of our neighbours have gone for full length decking/slabs/gravel to combat the unusable garden issue.

blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/06/04/the-problem-of-lawns/ American article but makes my point...

the amount of chemicals needed on my shady lawn in order to keep it usable is certainly not ecofriendly

Ach we can all play the Google game. Here's one on the benefits...

www.thelawninstitute.org/pages/environment/benefits-of-lawn/environmental-benefits-of-lawns/

I love mine! We did it earlier this year and I wish we'd done it sooner. Cutting the grass (or weeds) was a pain in the arse for DH and I have no desire to encourage insects in my garden! We have a cat so we've never done anything to encourage birds either.

Lurking as we have just finished laying artificial grass and want to see how it pans out! So far it's lovely to walk and sit on. We just had paving slabs before.

I much prefer walking on it than on the old lawn Rather, it's lovely and warm!

My garden is now done to make life as easy as possible, artificial grass, hedge removed so no cutting. I want to enjoy it, not have to work on it!

It is a reasonably large area (aprox 30m2). I am totally torn about what to do. I do care about the environment but it really is an eye sore currently. It would need to be rotavated and reseeded/returfed to have anything near decent, and then the regular maintenance. Plus I have a dog whose puss kills the lawn, hence bald patches.

Those with lawns, what is your maintenance routine?

The problem is that with 3 children, a dog, and a demanding job I don't have much time for lawn maintenance.

I have a very small lawn which has a small wall along about two thirds of the edge (where it's raised above the yard) and tall wall on the rest. Every time it needed mowing it also needed strimming to get the edges, and quite frankly it was a pain (not to mention the "fun" with the strimmer cord every sodding time).

So I had it replaced with artificial grass and don't regret it a bit. It was quite pricey (but worth it for my sanity) and even has little brown specks in it to make it look more realistic. You'd never mistake it for real grass but I don't think it looks that bad.

The only maintenance I ever do is the occasional sweep with a broom. Cats don't mind it either.

We have a three acre garden and about two of that is lawn. Honestly, we don't do much, in the summer we cut it obviously, if patches appear, we used to have a dog, and have friends with dogs, we sprinkle reseed and water it in. We have a new area of the lawn laid last year and when we had that very hot spell we were putting the sprinkler on it in the evening,

Past that my husband will randomly feed it, I'd say once a year, one pack, gets a notion in his head and goes for it in random places.

Cutting it too short is a problem, especially if it's going to be hot.so a higher setting is required.

You also can get companies who come out and feed your lawn and reseed, apparantly they are very good and lawns look amazing when they see to them and it's low cost. Not sure of the name sorry, but we have a friend who uses them and a member of my husbands family and their lawns are amazing,

Here is one.

www.greenthumb.co.uk/about-us

@Bluntness100 the Lawn Institute may be a trifle less impartial than Columbia Univerty.

All the gardens around our estate look awful, I think the houses have been built on really bad land because nobody has nice grass, just lots of dead patches interspersed with weeds and soil.

We paid about £2'000 a few years ago to have our garden renovated and have decking and new grass put down and although it looked wonderful at first within 12 months pretty much 50% of the grass had died and it looked horrendous again.

Neither DH or I have the time or inclination to maintain a garden hence why we decided last month to just get it Astro-turfed. We'd already spent wasted £2'000 trying to make it a garden that could be used and we didn't want to pay out for new grass again because we knew 6 months down the line it would be dead again.

Our garden area was about 27m(squared) and it cost us £1'150 and we are just so happy with it.

I love my artificial grass. The garden is North facing and built into a mountain with enormous trees behind it. We don't get a great deal of sun there. Previously it was a horrible garden with gravel, decking and weeds. Now it's used nearly all year round, my DS plays on it all the time and it feels like we have an extra room. Not a single regret.

Not sure why the odd Astro-turfed back garden is getting such a bashing when it's 9/10 front gardens that have been destroyed! Paved, bricked, tarmac'd, gravelled from front door to the road. Nothing lives there any more apart from the odd weed.

Bluntness - two acres of lawn is in many ways easier to look after than the postage stamp of grass many of us have in our gardens, though. Not least because that one bald patch on a large lawn basically is the whole lawn for our little gardens

We have artificial grass and I absolutely love it! It certainly doesn't look naff, we went for the most expensive one which worked out at about £50 per square meter (fitted) and our garden is about 80 square/m and it's the best thing ever.

Prior to having it done, our garden was a mud bath every autumn/winter and it looked awful. We also have dogs so this compounded the problem.

It doesn't flood as it is laid on a hardcore base with sand on top and the grass itself has a porous rubber backing so water can easily filter through. I disinfect it every couple of weeks and also hoover it!

If you have kids and/or dogs its an absolute godsend.

If you're going to get it done, it's worth paying the money to get it done well.
"Astro turf" is a bit misleading as a name now, conjures up an image of nasty plastic stuff.
I've had mine for a year now, no regrets.
I also have lots of trees and lots of plants in the borders and loads of birds so I think the environment is doing ok in my garden. The wildlife doesn't need grass specifically, soil will do.
Most people comment that the lawn is amazing before actually realising that it's fake, so it doesn't look too obvious. I have loads of leaves on mine and fruit trees so I have to brush it to keep it looking good. I have a dog too and it doesn't smell.
It drains properly, I tipped out the paddling pool, lazy way of cleaning it!
I must admit though I'm quite fastidious about it, if the dog poos on it I clean it with the dettol spray. I do hose it down regularly.
Bird poo doesn't seem to be a problem.
I did think the other day when I was brushing off the fallen leaves and apples that a quick mow would only take 15 mins, but the dog would have dug a million holes in it, so it would never look nice!