Fake grass recommendations

[CJCoopz]

Hello, first post 😬
We are wanting to convert a currently shingle area of our garden into a play area for our daughter. With a climbing frame.
looking for recommendations for quality fake grass, that doesn’t become too hot to play on, for the play area.
Name/brand of grass appreciated.
Also did you put underlay beneath the grass? Does it drain well when it rains?
Thank you so much

Wood chip ontop of some kind of specialised outdoor underlay that allows drainage is the other option. But we live in a suburban area with lots of neighbourhood cats. Our friends nearby created a wood chip play area and sachet it is used by the local cats as a giant litter tray!

Fake grass is 20% more likely to cause an injury than real grass I believe.

Fake grass is a sheet of spikey plastic on top of a layer of sand on top of a layer of hardcore (rocks). It's not at all soft.

Plus one piece of plastic gets pretty much as hot as another. It's not really what you're looking for if you want to cushion a fall.

That’s it we want something that has the bounce factor for safety. Sadly a lot of people seem to be missing the point that we have plenty real grass elsewhere in the garden and real grass isn’t safe enough as not soft enough for landing if a child did fall from a climbing frame.
I’m not keen on wood chip or sand as we live in a suburban area with lots of neighbourhood cats. I don’t want to create something that becomes the neighbourhood cat litter tray.

the other option I was contemplating was the soft rubbery outdoor play matting found in public play spaces. But I prefer the visual look of fake grass.

i was planning on going for high end fake grass with underlay underneath that supposedly still has drainage ability.

welcome to other ideas/surfaces that don’t equal the chance of becoming the local cat letter tray.

@CJCoopz my elderly neighbour spent £3,000 on artificial grass. Properly done with hard core etc. unfortunately all the neighbourhood cats use it as a giant toilet 🤢🤢

Grass is much softer than plastic grass. Especially if you keep it longish.

Fake grass isn’t going to bounce! In fact if you fell on it, I’d imagine you’d get Astro turf type burns. It sounds like what you’re after is rubber matting like they have in playgrounds. It’s not massively expensive for a small area, but needs installing properly.

I had play bark chippings under mine. No local cats used it as a litter tray.

Oh really oh no I didn’t think artificial grass was liked by cats as well. Possibly back to the drawing board then.

i agree cheap Astro turf can have a grazing/burning effect but high end options have evolved a lot to create softer options. You can’t put underlay under real grass. With astroturf you can put underlay underneath like you have under carpet which creates the softer landing.
i am looking into play mats like this that the grass can grow through but not keen on the aesthetics
rubberco.co.uk/products/rubber-grass-mats-b?variant=40351171018959&currency=GBP&cq_src=google_ads&cq_cmp=22090902603&cq_term=&cq_plac=&cq_net=x&cq_plt=gp&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22100969161&gbraid=0AAAAAD858jgFm-exqsP1eYhQctNO-9hv-&gclid=CjwKCAjwp_LDBhBCEiwAK7FnkqAyhlvBPfb21LM03oJn3gGptscrh5wBLwGS1dl8HnplKY68n1WmARoCr-4QAvD_BwE

Fake grass does not help safety of a fall. I have fake grass the base is weed membrane followed by granite dust . Which hardens like concrete the Fake grass then gos on top.

Wirh regards to comments about Fake grass smelling because of dogs and cats pee in order to stop that it had to have a certain base. And certain type of grass and no weed membrane directly under the grass. I did mine myself. I have 2 dogs and a cat i do not get any smells or weed growing through.

But op in your case Fake grass won't help protect your child if they fall from a climbing frame.

If safety is the issue you’re better off with bark. It will look much nicer too.

Anything other than fake grass it's really awful to look at and so bad for the environment.

https://www.rospa.com/play-safety/advice-and-information/grass

OP if grass wasn't 'soft enough' for a child falling from a climbing frame then many of us would have life changing injuries or be dead! When I was young, in the days of playgrounds with roundabouts in (now banned under health and safety) the area around was concrete or tarmac! At home we had swings on the lawn - essentially held down by tent pegs and the aim was to swing as high as possible then jump off.... I'm almost 60 and have never broken a bone and the scars I have are from falling over carrying a Pyrex bowl aged 5 and being stabbed above the eye with a plastic knitting needle by a frustrated sibling, none from falling off anything onto grass.

We love our fake grass but I couldn't tell you the name of it as it was already at the house. We will definitely renew it with fake grass. So neat and sooooo easy to maintain, the odd weed comes up but not as much as with normal grass. It only gets too hot if we have a week long heat wave so we all have flip flops but that happens once a year on the rest of the hot days it's fine.
Cats don't poo on ours , but don't cats just always poo in other people's gardens anyway. In our old house with real grass we also had cat poo !
But honestly it always looks neat and tidy and we don't do anything with it !
The water,rain , huge paddling pool empty's and drains right through it like normal grass too so win win 😆

Thanks good to hear an alternative view to most. Shame you don’t know the make/brand but glad it’s working for you

Thanks all, I think we are now erring towards real grass but with this thick mesh rubber mats ontop as after a few years of child focus use we do want to turn that corner of the garden back into a chilling out area with a hammock it swing seat as lovely tree there. See I’m not a bady on environment just trying to make a corner of the garden child focused.

Another low effort option could be to get some gym mats and then just put them away in the garage when the climbing frame isn't being used. Ikea do some cheap foldable ones.

Thanks for the thought but that wouldn’t work as quality climbing frames are permanent structures, until you want to get rid of them, that are secured to the ground. So it would stand there for several years. The idea is to have a surface under it that would enable play in winter as well.

Apologies re read your message and I get what you mean now but that wouldn’t work for us. My husband isn’t the type of person to faff with putting mats down every time my daughter wants to play on the climbing frame. I would but he wouldn’t. So we need something that would sit there all the time

I also recommend not using it.
It's dreadful for environment and ecosystem and it never ever looks nice.

Grass is fine to fall on, not that children fall often.

Just use real grass. It is much softer than the alternatives. Generations of children have grown up with climbing frames, swings, slides, seesaw and all kinds of play equipment on grass. We had a large wooden fort with climbing frame, monkey bars, slide, swings etc all on grass. It was used for over 15 years by numerous children and no nasty accidents.

There's no such thing as a quality fake grass. Bloody awful stuff for obvious reasons. Its so depressing to see the increase in it being used in people's gardens.