Advice on fake grass please?

[SpottyGreenFrog]

I'm thinking of a fake lawn because frankly my real lawn is like a bog & I'm sick & tired of mowing. My best friend is dead against them & warns me all sorts of bad stuff will happen like the joins will come apart and it will fade quickly & 'trails' will show where we walk. Have you had one? Does it look real? What did it cost? & did the joins come apart? I'll probably need 20m2

We love ours! Had it done professionally a couple of years ago and still looks perfect despite two young children, their slide etc being on it. Brilliant as never muddy. Great with a dog as you can wash and disinfect it. Best money we've spent on our house!

Agree with charteredmummy! We had ours done 2 years ago and love it, great with animals and no mess.

I used to work in the industry. It was a national brand and we were more expensive than the landscapers that sometimes would buy in any old grass to fit, but we had a quality product and gave an 8 year warranty (it was uv stable, so fading was covered under your warranty)

Check if Easigrass have a franchise in your area (we had a showroom for customers to visit, too)

I think the product + fitting was 60-80 per m2 plus VAT

We love ours, although if you drop BBQ charcoals on it, it will melt!!!

I viewed a house with a fake lawn, it was covered in mud from the borders, and a real mess.

If you are likely to want to sell at some stage it can be off-putting not to have real grass, it is also very environmentally unfriendly.

I would factor in getting a proper lawn if I found a house I wanted to buy that had fake grass and offer accordingly.

I think it's great. Looking at £20 sqm for grass but groundwork will add a lot. The key is making sure it's laid properly, essentially the base is the same as a patio. Don't do it on the cheap. Rolls can be 2 or 4m wide and then length you need, so a 5x4=20m could be one piece, so no join.

The selling point for me is its playable on after a bit of sun/few rainless days. No worrying about getting it mowed and then still being muddy. Needs a wash down and a brush once a year. Very child friendly.

When you hear a mower you get to reminiscence about those days....and laugh and roll in your amazing grass!

5 years on and ours looks bloody wonderful. Best thing we have done in the garden. Just give it a brush every few months to get rid of leaves etc and it's sorted

We have just had ours done. Many houses in our neighbourhood have artificial lawn. We are a heavy clay area and all the lawns are boggy and muddy. They are unusable except after a long period of no rain. Judging from neighbours lawns, they are great. Do you want a lawn you can use more often than the bog you got?

Every time I discover fake grass (or anything faking nature) I think of The Lorex.

Terrible for the environment... no wonder bees are dying of starvation. They look awful too.

I'm not keen from an environmental point of view. I don't like the way they look either and it would put me off buying a house too. It's the environmental side which bothers me the most. Sorry - that's probably not what you want to hear.

We are in an area with lots of clay , considering to go down this route. The back garden is just a bog. Watching with interest.

To those saying it’s an environment problem. For those in a very boggy area, the choice really is patio, decking or artificial grass. You can ofc just don’t use your back garden. Where we are you wont replace the artificial lawn with a real lawn. You have the option to put paving slab over it too. The foundations are done in this case already.

We have a boggy and useless lawn too, plus the lawn is northeast-facing so hardly gets any useful sun to dry it out.

This means that it's just not properly useable (e.g. you can't sit or roll or cartwheel on it without being covered with mud) but it's a real pain to even mow - even on the hottest days, the grass stays dewy until right at the end of the day, whilst the uneven ground underneath stays damp, so the lawnmower sticks, gets clogged up, jams on muddy hummocks etc.

The lawn is entirely a source of work and misery and no pleasure at all.

I dream of digging the whole lawn up and either paving or laying fake grass. But as that would be an environmental evil, would anybody like to volunteer to do the lawn maintenance for me? Don't all shout at once!

We're putting this down in the summer for a small area (London garden 😊). I have different samples from four different companies I can photograph and post here if anyone would be interested? I have a clear favourite.

I do feel a bit about the environment issue but we have two kids, a NW facing walled garden and it's a very small area. I'm going to stuff the rest of the garden with as much bee/inscet friendly plants, trees and shrubs as possible.

Hated mine but that was party due to the way it was put down. The guys really messsd it up and it never looked nice enough. Then we had a fire and the garden fence went up and took the whole lawn with it. Just a pile of expensive messy green plastic everywhere!

I don't have it myself, but a friend does, and it is too hot to walk on with bare feet on really hot days! Luckily we don't get too many of those

It's horrendous op- I'm with your friend here.

Terrible for the environment, looks very tacky (even 'high end' stuff ) and I've seen it where it does get flattened over time.

It's a sad world where we have fake grass.

Gosh. Mud, outside. How awful.

Maybe plastic grass, a cover over the garden so nothing gets wet and some heat lamps?

They look AWFUL, they feel awful underfoot, and it did put me off buying a house to see the plastic fake 'lawn' that the estate agent was touting as a bonus.

I actually think there should be regulations about their use, as well as paving- PILs experienced flooding largely due to the reduction in draining from so many monstrosities being installed.

We love ours. We bought the best grass we could and DH and Our builder installed it earlier this year. We went for the one that won the which ratings and have no complaints so far!

Blimey. This is like a breastfeeding vs. formula or Brexit debate.

My garden is clay and all clods of sticky mud. Umpteen sons with footballs on it mean most grass wears away over winter and it's all waterlogged mud . Everything gets filthy from it. Would love to have an artificial lawn even though It can look a bit naff . Also countersink the monstrosity which is the trampoline into it . #sigh

MonkeyPoke, they could even add some walls, a few windows... even a door!