Anyone laid artificial grass in their garden?

[askarisiddiqui]

We have a small garden that faces north and is mostly in the shadow due to our 3-story house on a raised foundation. The area receives little to no direct sunlight. Currently, the majority of our "lawn" is covered in moss. We are looking for a surface for our child to play on that requires minimal maintenance. Additionally, we frequently go away for extended periods during the summer.

Is artificial grass good? [spam link removed by MNHQ]

Any suggestions, recommendations or opinions based on your experience would be greatly appreciated.

I think it is awful sorry.

It’s really awful for the environment. You can get types of lawn seed that are better suited for shade than others.
Otherwise what about growing a lawn of moss? No mowing!

Really bad. Terrible for the environment 😔.

If you want to ruin it, increase heat in warm weather and damage your local eco system then go ahead.

Are you in the UAE?

If it’s a small space how about decking (you’d need to keep it clean to avoid it getting slippery in the shade). Or gravel?

The key to artificial grass is to have the correct base which is what costs the most money. The actual grass itself varies depending on what type/blade you buy (a bit like when choosing a carpet).

I have long blades of grass and it's very soft underfoot.

Plastic grass is bad enough t.,Shipping it from Dubai is even worse.

Terrible creation for home gardens, increases the heat and essentially kills the soil below of microorganisms, and after a few years looks pretty crap. It doesn't look like real grass and stands out a mile. It also can't be recycled, all they can do it grind it up to pellet form and disposed.

Plastic grass is horrible, it’s terrible for the environment. You can’t walk on it when it’s hot. It still gets muddy and covered in leaves etc so you have to wash and brush it. A gravel garden with pots on and a path or small patio with planted areas around it much better.

I have it. Similar to you, north facing garden, big tree, not a lot of space. We also had the foundations of a pond impacting the growth of the grass.

Half our garden is paved and half artificial grass.

It's great. So little required to keep it looking good. No issue with heat etc. kids love running on it.

Agree though it's worth buying the best you can and having it laid properly so the drainage is good.

No. It's awful stuff.

My next door neighbour has it. It looks so very obviously fake and needs hoovering and regular cleaning to remove bird droppings and other debris. It seems to need almost as much attention as real grass.

And it is bad for the environment.

Yuk no, awful stuff.

It’s not really maintenance free. Dirt settles on it and it needs regular cleaning otherwise moss and weeds will grow. Mossy artificial grass sounds like worst of both worlds. This was a few years ago but I boxed off the lawn with railway sleepers ( seconds they were pretty cheap) put down weed proof membrane and then filled with wood chip. Soft landing for little ones and you can plonk play equipment on it. At some point area will be returfed.

How depressing to have plastic grass that's so bad for the wildlife. Get moss or a suitable grass for shady areas.

For maintenance I pick up leaves and occasional give it a brush. Far less time spent than on my other natural grass lawn.

Previous owners of my mid-terrace installed it in our tiny 'yard'.

It's awful. It never dries out, lots of surface water and moss. Very unsafe. We've got 2 shrubs that leak leaves like there's no tomorrow so unless we sweep and leaf-sucker it, you can't see the grass for the leaves. Our neighbours have cats - they have claimed out grass as a cat clawing scratching place despair however much anti-cat stuff or citrus we use.

We had to dig a channel drain because the surface water runoff was damaging our house. The astro stank of cat-pi$$!!

I hate it. Avoid it.

You need to follow ShitLawns on twitter.

I think another issue with it is if you move house in the future it may well put people off as a fair bit of work to remove and get rid of the base. We have been looking and didn’t offer on somewhere because of it and we’re not usually adverse to doing a bit of work.

Don't rule out moss. It's soft, spongy, so ideal for playing on. Grows in shade, looks after itself and has lovely greens.

No it's awful. Make a shade garden instead if a lawn isn't working

@AnyMucca is absolutely right! Moss is wonderful. There are some stunning moss gardens in Japan.

We have it. Our garden is tiny and it was for maintenance reason. It's very easy to look after. I hose ours down occasionally and brush up any fallen leaves but that's it.
You get what you pay for though and if you want something that looks and feels for realistic it can be quite pricey depending on size.

I've never seen a plastic lawn yet that doesn't look shit, even from those people who maintain, "oh but mine looks really authentic."

Have currently due to previous owners, awful stuff plastic stuff, terrible for the environment.
Digging it up this year.