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.

DM had it... looks rubbish - stand at her window washing up slowly judging it every time I'm there

My neighbours installed it because they hated the fox poo and having to ‘maintain’ their lawn. It’s on a slight slope. Rain water runs straight down to their house wall and collects there as it can’t soak through. The foxes love it and poo on it anyway - and it’s a lot harder to clean fox poo off plastic.

I ‘maintain’ my north facing lawn by mowing it once a month or so in the warmer months. It takes care of itself in winter. I have moss, it doesn’t bother me.

Practically everyone where I live in London has it when they have kids. Small gardens, terraced houses - it’s practical for kids to play football on. For the same reason that most of our schools have all weather surfaces on their smaller pitches too. I think it must be impossible to have grass on a small area where football is played continuously in the winter. I’ve never seen paving used in any school for an all weather pitch - assume because it’s not great when the kids fall over.

Nobody thinks it looks nicer than real grass - it’s purely so we can use our gardens and let our kids play outside.

We’ll get rid of it when our kids are older & I would obvious prefer that it were easily recyclable. There’s definitely a gap in the market for a recyclable or longer lasting reusable version.

Half of our lawn is moss, the people before us spend £££ trying to get rid of it but I love it!! Looks lovely and green, doesn’t need mowing!

I think you need to ignore the people on this thread who didn't choose to install it in their own garden which will be the majority who always come onto these threads and tell us how bad it is. Just their own opinion.

Yes, I did put artificial grass in my north facing back garden and we love it. It does soak water away and it dries faster than normal grass. My children could play out on it and not come back covered in mud or grass stains. I no longer had bald patches of mud due to children playing in certain areas. Birds sunbathe on it, sit there with their wings spread wide. We have hedgehogs, foxes, squirrels and birds in our garden all the time.

Fox poo comes off really easily as you can scrub it with a brush to remove any residue unlike normal grass, I have removed fox poo from both real and artificial grass. Maintenance wise it just needs brushing to remove berries or leaves and you need to use weedkiller occasionally as weeds can grow on top of it, not from below due to the weed membrane.

I don't care that it doesn't look "real" and I don't care what anyone else thinks of it. It turned an unusable space into a space where the children can play. The only negative is it can get hot in summer and the children wear shoes outside anyway but considering the ratio of very hot days to all other days in the year it is a small sacrifice.

You’ll get slaughtered on here for asking about artifical grass because MN hates it 😂 We got it in a similar position to you - I spent years trying to make the back garden useable, did all the research on caring for a lawn, but it was pretty much constsntly muddy and wet and looked awful no matter what I did. We only have a small garden and it’s so so so much more useable now. We paid a decent amount to have it fitted properly - it’s true you get what you pay for. Ours doesn’t get hot in the sun and is easy to maintain. We have tons of real plants in the garden and plan to keep it for years and years so don’t see it as something frivolous that would be discarded in a year or so, however the cheap ones look crap and would do I think.

We’ve got half and half because we have a dog who scrapes the grass, so it’s soon mud. We put it down ourselves, 4 years later it’s ok, not great but it’s certainly does the job.

www.plymouth.ac.uk/discover/why-are-artificial-lawns-bad-for-the-environment

Very well put. Its not for everyone but it is a godsend for some. We have 2 dogs, DS & DD who enjoy the garden and we are very active so do not have time to maintain a lawn. We get so much more use out of our garden than all our neighbours. Its hygenic because its so easy to keep clean whereas some of our neighbours really do struggle to keep their gardens clean. Hearing a neighbour telling their little boy to watch out for dog poo......

I have had artificial lawn for about 20yrs now on 2 lawns and i reckon another 5 years before i get enough time to be able to appreciate a proper lawn. Then i will happily embrace the joys of trying to maintain a grass lawn with all the lawn feeds, electricity to run the mower, watering and everything else it involves.

Artificial grass is far from the only solution to shady and / or lower maintenance gardens. What size is the space OP and how young are your DC? You could do some combination of decking and wood chip with some shade tolerant planting. There are lots of very soft wood chips available which are suitable for children's play areas.

I think you need to ignore the people on this thread who didn't choose to install it in their own garden which will be the majority who always come onto these threads and tell us how bad it is. Just their own opinion.

This not an opinion though. It’s a fact.

If I were to suggest, for example, that plastic grass is bad for the environment, then that’s a fact.

if I were to suggest that people who use it are twats, then that’s an opinion, and that’s not what’s going on here.

It can get really hot in summer which you would need to consider.
My neighbour has to regularly clean hers (jetwash when it's been raining, vacuum (!) in the summer) and it seems like an lot of upkeep considering they're sold as low maintenance.
I don't cut my grass nearly as often as she's cleaning her artificial lawn.

You might find that whatever is making your grass mossy means that your artificial grass will always be mucky (in our gardens, we have mossy grass due to large trees at the back of all our gardens)

I decided against artificial grass due to the environmental impacts of it.
I suspect that in a few years, people will stop using it - like plastic straws, plastic boxes for Persil etc., the tide is turning.
"Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should"

Could you do a playbark area for your child?

Gosh OP - was this just all about the advertising?

Oh please don’t it’s awful for the environment, and looks terrible. It also can get very hot in summer; so you’d have to be careful with a child on it.

Should the subject to planning permission.

I suspect it will actually lower the value of your house- I rejected a house because of it.

The stuff is also suspected of being carcinogenic (seriously).

I wouldn't want my DS exposed to it regularly.

Rather have the mud.

We have it. I like the low maintenance aspect. However it gets very hot in summer (have to wear shoes) and I'm glad we didn't get it when my children were small

We have it, similar reasons, small North facing garden heavily surrounded by tall trees. It has transformed our garden. The "lawn" was just boggy mud; this drains well. We have planting all around and spent a lot on a good quality "grass".

I have never had to hoover my grass. I think you just have odd neighbours

The only thing that MN hates more than artificial grass is a personalised number plate

I have artificial grass on my back lawn. Been down approx 13yrs. Love it

Apart from all the other issues - moss will also grow on artificial grass.

We did. We have a tiny postage stamp garden and two toddlers. It was previously paved so we couldn't even sit out in it during the summer. Ours also faces north. The grass is brilliant- looks really natural and now makes the space usable for our children. It also makes the space look bigger. I would highly recommend it for the same sort of situation (small space, no light)

Your trees are beautiful @Callimanco , v jealous.

It was previously paved so we couldn't even sit out in it during the summer.

Why not?