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?

Ole, I've had small gardens before,,,the reality is for me, neither is hard to manage, and you can get companies who feed and seed it for twenty odd quid a couple of times a year.

Personally I don't like plastic fake grass, it never looks real when you get up close to it, and often not from a distance either. I also prefer to cut the grass than have to hoover or brush it, and I don't want to me hosing it down either. Neither is maintenance free.

I just don't get the trying so hard to fake it, when it's really not that hard to have the real thing looking good.

It's like you have a Chanel handbag, you could pay 50 quid to have it refurbed to look great or you could bin it and pay fifty and buy a fake one that will always look fake. I don't get it. As said, both need maintenance, just different types,

With regard to lawns being environmentally friendly - surely that depends where you live? And on how perfect you expect your lawn to look? In most parts of Britain I would have thought they are environmentally friendly, as we get enough rain to not need to water it. If you live somewhere with very dry summers, or if you want golf-course perfection, then they are probably not that environmentally friendly. I have never, ever watered my lawn, but then that's because I'm lucky to live in a very damp place!

Best thing we have done for the children - looks great if a good quality grass used

We've just had our small front garden done. It looks lovely now. The grass was always very patchy and muddy.

I think astro turf looks very tacky. If you can't cope with a nice lawn then go for tiles and pot plants.

We have a large garden, but no 'maintenance' routine bar cutting it when it needs it. It has some weeds in it, but that is just what you get with a living ecosystem. It has never been watered, or had chemicals on it and looks just fine.

Depressing reading - digging up grass, ripping up hedging, disinfecting fake grass.

Sterile, lifeless environments.

do you want to replace your son with a robot so that there is less mess and more perfection

Erm no, OP is considering a bit of astroturf in her unmanageable garden. Ffs. Talk about extreme comparison.

@squishysquirmy it's still monoculture on a massive scale. So even in damp places, it's still not ideal. Better but not ideal.

Lots of native and mixed planting, with an eye on water in your area, thinking about local insect and bird life etc. Much better for the environment.

I love wild flowers and natural lawn but we have artificial turf on a large section we have fenced off for DC. It looks great. It is very clean and can be hoovered.

I love it.

If you decide to go for it - and I would if I had the cash because I had mine returfed 2 years ago and it looks shit again - pay someone to do it.
One of my neighbours was doing his own & it was the biggest pita. It took him about 3 full weekends lugging tons of sand about. I was fed up of the crescent lorry turning up AGAIN

People are obsessed with the 'look' of their gardens rather than their function.

I have a neighbour who will pick all my dandelions and put them in the bin. The bees need them!! And she purports to be a gardener

I also have a friend who is always banging on about using less plastic on facebook, but has a plastic lawn!!

Around where I live there's a couple of houses, one has a blue lawn and the other a pink.
When hoovering the plastic grass, does the hoover not get clogged with leaves and the likes.

Each to their own, of course, but I find it really depressing to hear how many people have astroturfed their gardens We're in the process of buying our first house with a garden (have a small paved yard currently), and while we were house hunting this really put me off a few properties. I just can't imagine wanting to cover my garden in plastic and can't wait to have some real grass and plants that don't have to live in pots!

If astroturf makes you happy, great, but we are running out of green spaces in urban and suburban areas because of people astroturfing and paving over gardens etc.

"it's still monoculture on a massive scale."

You've not seen my lawn! Monoculture it is not. Nor is it particularly massice
I would quite like to reduce our lawn to make way for more plants, (have a tiny garden) but dh is very resistant to the idea. And, unlike a completely wild garden, or flower bed, lawns are very good for kids to play on.

I know its not perfect but seeing how much the bees were enjoying the clover flowers earlier, I still think it is better than astroturf. But each to their own - I do think astroturf can look good in the right setting.

We had a huge garden at our old house so fenced off the top 30ft and laid the artificial grass, it looked the same as the day we laid it when we moved 3 years later however with dogs peeing on it it smelt foul on warm days, I used to water it with disinfectant but it didn't help, it's punctured with drainage holes every 5cm or so and the urine must go through there so it's impossible to wash off.

We've got a little patch here on our side garden and again it stinks on warm days, looks nice though.

Each to their own, of course, but I find it really depressing to hear how many people have astroturfed their gardens

The company who did mine, who cover Leicestershire said they do an average of 3 or 4 gardens a day.

We have it and it is fantastic
Our garden is used all year round, and we have far more things planted out there now, because we actually want to spend time in the garden
And that means we have lots more birds, butterflies, insects etc

This is my 'eco disaster' garden...

Dogsmom I once took my son to a party - his friends garden - and the dog wee/bleach fumes made me leave early. No one else seemed to notice it!

dogsmom
Have you tried powerwashing it?
We give ours a quick blast every few weeks in summer and it doesn't smell at all

The company who did mine, who cover Leicestershire said they do an average of 3 or 4 gardens a day.

That doesn't surprise me, I think it's becoming more and more popular everywhere. But it does make me feel a bit sad whenever I see it.

Google goal keepers on AstroTurf and cancer and see if it puts you off

I think they may use different stuff these days, hopefully

It's tacky looking and horrifically dreadfully awfully bad for the environment. Why don't people realize that? Makes me very sad. You don't need a perfect lawn, mine is a mixture of ground ivy, moss, daisies all sorts. The bees love it, I spend no time on it except moving it once in a while.

We have AstroTurf. We inherited it when we bought the house. I can take it or leave it. I hated it to begin with as it looks a bit strange, there's a distinct lack of bird life, hedgehogs etc. I'm getting used to it but still miss the natural look. However, I don't miss the muddy patches over winter, the cutting, feeding etc.

We have a beat willow tree which softens the overall look.

Mine is nothing like the old AstroTurf, it's much longer and softer and has different shades of grass. I would happily have stabbed over the entire garden but we agreed that artificial grass would look better!

I have a few bee friendly plants in the border and begonias in pots, it's definitely not a sterile lifeless environment!

The hedge came out because it was half dead, full of bindweed and getting a bit much for DH as he has back problems. I don't see the problem with making the garden as low maintenance as possible.