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?

Would someone considering paving over grass get the same reaction? Can't believe a little bit of snobbery would be creeping in would it?

I expect they would sneer because we are running low on green spaces. I strongly believe we should all do our part in keeping what we can / what we own ourselves; whether that be with lawn, plants, garden trees, shrubs.

We didn't want paving or gravel or pathways etc, we wanted somewhere nice for our son to play and something we could all enjoy.

Up until we Astro-turfed, our jungle garden was just wasted, we all hated it, it was an eyesore and we never went in it. Since having the A.T put down though we are out in the garden all the time, it's lovely and seeing my DS have somewhere to play makes me really happy.

Absolutely no regrets!!!

Oh come on daily, are you telling us that you have no paving, patio, retaining walls and the like at all in your garden? What about the front? When you step out of your front door, is it natural all the way to the pavement?

Oh ffs
I dug up the grass and planted trees, bushes and probably 100 plants. I've got more soil now than I did before.
I haven't ruined the environment.
You can still have plants and flowers

A normal garden is the width of a house. My garden is half of that.

My environment isn't damaged at all thank you. Why do you think having a manky piece of grass/hedge/conifer/laburnum is so important when it's so difficult to maintain?

A narrow lawn is much harder to cut than a wider one especially one we put a new fence in as there wasn't one before. DH struggled to cut the hedge so it made sense to replace it with a fence. The conifer was cut down as it's roots were moving the path and the laburnum just made a mess.

I don't know why I'm trying to justify myself. I'm happy with my choices and my little garden really isn't going to speed up global warming!

Original tiles out the front. Back is lawn, shrubs, plants.

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.

I've never watered or put chemicals on any lawn I've had. Then again, I'm not obsessed with it being perfect, and I actually like wild plants that grow in it. Mine's got daisies, clover, mosses and plantains in it at the moment, plus the grasses are flowering. I much prefer it a bit wild, so maybe it's not technically a "lawn". I absolutely agree with you about alternative natural lawns MrsTerry; have you tried chamomile? I didn't have a lot of luck with it but it smelt gorgeous for a while.

You step out your back door onto what? Earth? If so, you are one in a million. And why haven't you ripped the tiles up?

Agreed lilies. A garden filled with plants and shrubs is probably better for the environment than lawn, looks better and is so much more interesting to look out over. I'm considering replacing my lawn with plants & shrubs

But it's PLASTIC grass. PLASTIC.

How about some plastic stones - plastic soil - plastic trees/flowers/pets??

Must be like living in fucking Disney.

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
Because astoturf is yet another thing that's adding to the decline in wildlife habitat and feeding opportunities. It's just as bad as paving and tarmacing in that sense.

We're running out of green spaces because of constant building, new roads, retail parks etc etc not because someone covers their own tiny patch of land with something practical.

Nobody is an island Hippy. The problem isn't just the large scale things you've mentioned, it's also the accumulation of lots of individuals who astroturf their gardens/tarmac their entire driveway/spray insecticide in everything/dig up shrubs/only have plants that look nice but aren't useful to pollinating insects/have gardens that are inpenetrable to hedgehogs (so reducing their forraging territories)/getting rid of ponds, etc. It all adds up. There is no getting away from the fact that much of our wildlife needs all the help it can get, and it relies on a collective of individuals all doing what they can to improve things, or at the very least not make matters worse.

Exactly Pink, no need to justify yourself to me. As I said, each to their own. We have different beliefs.

You step out your back door onto what? Earth? If so, you are one in a million. And why haven't you ripped the tiles up?

Because my landlady wouldn't like that. If it were my garden I'd dig a pond, plant loads of native plants, but alas it isn't so I'm rather tied to what I can do. Are you going to suggest I should bulldoze my house too and convert the space to wildlife habitat?

Not allowed to rip the tiles up. There are three small steps from the back door that lead into the lawn. I got the decking that came with the house pulled up.

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

That x100

I mow the lawn once a week ,rarely water it and it's lovely. What chemicals do people put on their lawns?

I love ours, it's made our garden usable again.

I mean I could of put hours and hours into getting a lawn to grow and be nice and environmentally friendly but it'd be such a shame to cut down all the trees in and around it which mean we get about 20mins sunshine a day.

Plastic lawn + loads of trees + my nice bark chipping area which the work done seems to have set off bluebells growing in. Suits me just fine!!

We've had ours down for 3 years. I've never cleaned it apart from wiping off the odd bit of bird poo before my son eats it. The rain takes care of the rest. It doesn't look natural but I don't care about that. It's safe and usuable for my son all year which is my priority.

We had ours done last year and love it. There was no wildlife in our garden anyway, we use it was more than we ever could before and we've never had to clean it. It cost a lot, but no more than it was going to cost us to get all the hardcore the builders put in the garden dug up and then top soil then turf laid. It's the best decision we've made with regards to our house.

Dame - I mow mine every 2 (ok 3) weeks. No chemicals. I pull up the odd weed; let some grow (keep them controlled with mowing) that I know the bees like. Takes up about about 3 of hours of my life each month.

Yabu. Fake grass is naff and very bad for the environment. Only Wimbledon is meant to have perfect weed free grass. Everywhere else needs some 'weeds' and mud. Birds and insects aren't going to flourish on plastic grass.

And I've never weeded or watered my garden either. Mow it a few times a year and it's happy.

@WhatALoadOfOldBollocks we thought about camomile, thanks! Also creeping thyme etc. It's quite a lot of planning because we know the combination of shade and sun is tricky. We've put in some longer native grasses to test them for hardiness.

Of course everyone who leaves their lawn longer, uses no food or pesticides on it, never waters and has a mix of grass, clover, dandelion and moss isn't spitting on Mother Nature. But these things do add up. If you live in a dryer region a lot of fresh water use is gardening. Run off of chemicals is nasty. Not as nasty as using detergent on AstroTurf maybe, but not good.

There's a bloke near me in a naice neighbourhood (not mine!) who ignores all his neighbours watering their lawns in the summer and has a little sign in his garden that says, "going gold for green". Because his lawn is brown by the end.

Of course no one actually has to give a shit, that's completely fine. But if the environment is a concern, neither AstroTurf nor perfectly maintained lawn is great.

Astro turf is rubbish even on football pitches. I rest my case.

nina
Garden astroturf is nothing like sports pitch astroturf