Artificial grass naff or a godsend?

[DearDinah]

I love a nice lawn, but with two dogs, one a bitch, one a smelly wee'd male our lawn is rank!
I have a babba on the way & while I know she won't be old enough to appreciate the garden this year, I'd like her to be able to sit & play on a 'lawn' next year so was considering this artificial stuff. I haven't had a good look at it yet & all I can envisage at the moment is sharp, scratchy plasticy astro turf.
Has anyone had any & do you rate it? Is it easy to hose down?
BTW - we tried all kinds of remedies to stop our bitches toxic wee burning the lawn, nothing helps & keep trying patch repair which fails miserably!

sorry - but naff!

And it won't be nice to sit on for your DD. It looks nicer than it feels .

Ok got it, decking it is! Lol xx

We had it done because our back garden was a swamp. The DC, now 9 and 12 had never been able to play on it. We had it Re-landscaped around 6 years ago and drainage put in but it didn't make the slightest bit of difference.

I hate it. I absolutely HATE hate hate the look. I am busy overcompensating by planting loads and loads of container plants all around it and getting more dwarf trees in and climbing plants for the fences to get a bit of nature back into my garden!

Having said that, everyone else loves it. We've finally been able to put a trampoline in and the DC spend every dry moment of the day outside playing on it. So I suppose it has filled its purpose but my GOD it is hideous!

Naff. And with dog wee and excrement on it - revolting. You'd spend your life scrubbing and bleaching. Bleurgh.

Hi there - we saw some on top of a van a few weeks ago: I kid you not, it said 'please touch me'. It looked like real grass - had I not known it was artificial, I would not have been able to tell - and it didn't feel scratchy and plasticky at all. The list of benefits included rain draining through it.

The expensive stuff is lovely, soft and relatively easy to maintain. It will also not 'burn' from dog urine and drains well. The cheap stuff, not so much.
That said you will need to wash it frequently if the dogs will still use it as a toilet and you can actually purchase decent turf resistant to becoming soured by doggy business

I have got it and it's fantastic. no problems with drainage, soft to sit and play on and can be pressure washed clean. It looks very realistic too.
there's a big variety of grasses and all different grades of quality however. Most of the cheaper ones are nasty.

Mrs Mopps
Where are you located. We are in London and looking for a supplier to quote for astro suitable for DS to play footie on.

Naff. House down the road has it and it looks terrible in the front garden where you'd guess there would be little wear and tear.
Have you tried feeding the dogs a daily tomato?

orange I'm not anywhere near London and it's a local company I used.

don't go for astro turf, that's the horrible stuff, fine for football but not natural looking or nice to sit on. What you want is artificial grass. If you Google you will get a lot of companies, they will send out samples.
look to pay at least £40 a square metre for the higher end grasses.

Ds was once invited to a party at a friends house. He was only 3 and parents were asked to stay. The garden had artificial grass which looked ok but apparently the dog did its business on it all the time. They had disinfected the it so the kids could play on it, but the smell was disgusting, and the zoflora aroma just made it worse.

Curious about the tomato iseenodust

We've got it and I love it, and ours is actually soft and nice to sit on. We're not gardening people at all though so it's been a godsend not having to do anything. I'll post a couple pictures.