To loathe astroturf/artificial grass?

[Londonwriter]

Our new house has a complete mess of a garden, which needs digging up and starting again.

A neighbour with two DCs and a dog has just renovated their house and has probably 40ft of artificial grass. I think it looks horrible. There's no doubt they've used expensive fake grass, but it is still a lurid featureless green and it's really hot underfoot.

My garden-that-needs-returfing may have yellow grass in the drought, especially where our dog has peed, but it looks natural and in keeping with the surroundings. I don't need year-around green - it's just weird.

Am I a plastic grass bigot? I've had two neighbours, and a guy doing carpentry on our house, all recommend astroturf - having had it installed themselves. They all tell me that I'd come around if I had it installed...

It's great for were it was intended, football pitches and Nursery schools etc.

Everywhere else should try for a lawn, unless there are health/practical reasons not to.

I agree about the wildlife concerns. I can remember when everyone got rid of hedges for walls and all the sparrows disappeared. Cats get a lot of blame, but it's garden designing that doing a lot of damage to our wildlife.

Naff, tacky and wait for it ...... very working class. And I was born working class

We have a severely disabled child and it makes a practical and safe surface for him to use all year round. We have never hosed or hoovered it - we don't have any overhanging bushes so it doesn't get leaves on it. Drainage is also fine. It doesn't look 'real' but we are not intending it to.

Yanbu to loathe it.

Other people anbu to love it.

We have astroturf. We have a small garden in Central London and it's very practical.

Ours was made from recycled plastic.

We have 2.5 metre high trellising that hosts 6 climbing vines, so we're covered for bees etc. It looks glorious. Wouldn't change it for anything.

@kursk

Surly getting muddy and the odd scraped knee is the sign of a fun healthy childhood??

Indeed! But how many uniform changes do you need to go though before you even get to school?!

My kids are outside diving and skidding around on the grass 24/7 so it at least keeps washing down to an acceptableish level...

Still have to shower then down every time they come home from the park though!

@jamesblonde1

'Very working class'

Have you seen the bloody price of it!!

“Have you see the price of it?”

I think we all know that the cost of something doesn’t determine “class”.

I can just imagine - fake grass, decking, hot tub, boozing, music - all torturing the next door neighbours

YANBU. It's horrible, especially when used to replace an actual lawn. Friends have put it on top of their concreted back yard (victorian terrace) - for something like that I get it. But I would never in a million years replace my lawn - which is currently pretty yellow looking - with a plastic version.

Yanbu. We have real grass that is a million shades of yellow where I've reseeded parts of it at different times (I dug up the border, I reseeded the bit that died when a table was on top of it all winter and I filled in a hole left by a bush that got stolen) but it's full of clover flowers, daisies, buttercups and dandelions. There are loads of bees and butterflies here and therefore birds aplenty too. I love it.

A small section of our garden is astroturfed and I really like it. I would never deny being working class though, so maybe that's why hubby and I like it

However we didn't have a lot of choice as our garden is on several different levels and there were already 3 huge patio areas, and we ripped up horrendous decking and needed to put down something instead. We couldn't replace the decking with actual grass as there would be no way to get a lawn mower to that section as there are too many steps.

I'd never replace my whole lawn with it though. Partly because it would cost over £20k to do so! And partly because grass is a lot better.

I'm guessing the point that's it's great for the elderly and disabled who can't physically mow the lawn has bypassed you all that hate it? Nobody is forcing you to have it unless I've missed a government decree?
and planted up in a garden with low maintenance borders it's being hours of pleasure to those who can't care for a garden. My dad in law is 92 and has both his front and back garden done and it works wonderfully as he can sit out in the garden and use both his wheelchair and his walker with ease.....it's not always lazy people and as for the working class comment REALLY......

My parents had some really nice artificial grass at their last house because of the dogs. Always green, but didn't get any hotter than regular grass in the summer and wasn't too plastic-y.

Then again, I'm allergic to grass so maybe I'm biased because it meant I could sit on the lawn