Has anyone actually put real grass IN their garden?

[copernicium]

I've an area approx 15m2 that currently has slate chippings. As a result, we don't use it, as it's the back of the garden and we like to wander barefoot. It's about a third of the total garden, the other area is Indian stone. There's raised beds with sleepers all around.

It feels like a fairly simple job to move the chippings and to lay some turf...but it feels like everyone else is ripping theirs up to lay artificial grass. I can't bring myself to lay so much plastic as we are very environmentally conscious.

It's not a feeling I want to have the same as everyone. I'm just thinking if everyone js ripping theirs up, it's for a reason...will I regret laying real grass to a garden that is currently maintenance free...

Grass doesn't have to be high maintenance if you don't care if it goes brown during prolonged hot dry weather (I never water grass once established) and don't mind if it get tall and full of wildflowers/weeds. You can mow it as much or as little as you like and it will pretty much fend for itself. It should bring in lots of insects if left to do it's own thing.

I’m very allergic so no way would I have grass!
I have a thrift lawn, it’s reliably drought tolerant and evergreen so never goes brown/yellow, needs no feeding, no weeding, no mowing, has pretty flowers..

I wish everyone would lay it (or chamomile or clover or Irish moss or any of the other alternatives) instead of nasty, ugly, horrible allergenic grass!

We did and then lost it all when having building works. We've managed to grow it again but it took 18 months and a lot of work. It has to be mown every week at this time of year. We keep a section that is left to grow as it wishes. The blackbirds like digging up worms there . We refuse to put artificial down. It's awful stuff.

We don't have any lawn at all, but if we did it would be real grass. I don't know anyone who has the artificial stuff. I've always foubd it a weird concept tbh. Gardens are about plants and nature, surely?

We moved a slightly larger space of bloody ugly gravel, it was a nightmare and took ages.

However, it's now a lovely mini wildflower meadow. Brings me joy every single day.

We’ve bought turf to replace churned up grass when we had building work and are glad to have done it. It’s nice for walking barefoot on and isn’t any bother, just occasional mowing. I get school PE flashbacks from the fake grass - just think it’s a bit naff. Often see company vans for fake grass around tho weirdly!

I'd quite like to get rid of our lawn @TheDiddlyGang your alternative sounds lovely.

I looked into having an alternative to grass like a thrift lawn @TheDiddlyGang but I heard it was quite spikey to walk on. Is this your experience?

And a camomile lawn is delicate and can’t have much foot traffic.

A clover lawn sounds nice though!

I can't understand why anyone would want artificial grass. Grass lawn here, far from perfect because of the dog, but so much lovelier than plastic and nowhere as bad for the environment

put in real grass. get a basic electric mower to cut it once in a while. it will be lovely.

Yep. And we just grew ours from seed. You could always redistribute the slate chippings to the top of your raised bed to keep weds down.
Love seeing the birds on the lawn

Yes, put wildflower turf in last year. It's just coming into its own now with buttercups, red & white clover, yellow rattle, ragged robin and about 10 different types of grass.
Full of bees, crickets, etc.

We did last Easter.

Took up the delving previous owner had built all over the small garden. Then DH freecycled the pebbles under the decking. We then had to rotovate the soil and add top soil, levelled it all and put down rolls of turf.

It’s the most wonderful garden ever, the cat like sleeping on the lawn in the late afternoon as grass is always so much cooler. It’s made our garden look a lot bigger and I feel so proud we did it ourselves.

If I ever have to do something like this again I’m lying people to do it for us.

The grass isn’t much maintenance at all, DH mows it once every two weeks or so. Not at all in winter.

@Disfordarkchocolate thats beautiful, could never have fake grass- save the bees and insects!

@Disfordarkchocolate that's beautiful!

The layout of the garden would let me get away with it not being immaculately mown...

Yes. We had too much parking space so converted a chunk to lawn. Lots of wildflowers around in the beds and I’m not meticulous about lawn care, eg only mow weekly, but it’s lovely to lie on on a sunny afternoon

Artificial grass is dreadful. There are hundreds of better alternatives but some people are too thick to realise.

@Calmdown14 this was my plan!

Love the idea of more wildlife!

Yes we’ve just done it and it looks bloody fantastic!!!!

Oh you've all made me really excited 😊

Yes, we removed fake grass the previous owner put down and put down a layer of topsoil and then grass seed - it looks great now!

Yes , turfed one area and just used seed in another, both worked the same

And everyone isn’t ripping up their lawns for plastic grass!

Please don't, it's awful stuff! And if everyone else is ripping theirs up, more the reason to do the opposite.

I have just laid turf where there was previously very badly done gravel. Had not heard of wild flower turf which sounds lovely. However, I have space to plant lots around it, so happy with that. I am allergic to grass and birch pollen, but it did not concern me enough not to proceed.

I'm grass obsessed. The smell, how it looks, I mow once a week..... trim the edges with scissors, feed it organic seaweed you name it I do it with grass.