Fake grass & dogs

[coffeewithmilk]

Hi all,
Sorry if this should be in the gardening area/threads.

I've recently gotten artificial grass in my back garden. Has very good drainage.
My dog obviously uses the garden to go to the toilet.
I've noticed it's starting to smell and I've only had it a few weeks.

What is your solution? I pick up the poo immediately but all I can smell is dog wee.
I've just hosed it down and we did have a very heavy downpour of rain but that didn't seem to help.

Thank you

Depends how much chemical runoff that paddock generates...

The other 5 acres of our land is left to natural habitat.
I think that more than offsets a 160m2 paddock

It's PLASTIC ...

This issue does concern me as I've been considered fake grass for my garden as its too small for real grass to survive. I guess needs something with enzymes to break it down and good rinse
I want to be able to use garden all year but need a softer surface for the dogs to run & tumble about on than slabs. Plan to put some shade sails up to avoid getting too hot underfoot.
Be much easier if i didn't have dogs, I'd ditch lawn totally to fill the space up with plants.

@Ylvamoon I can assure you it isn't plastic.
The astroturf is an extremely small percentage of our land that is necessary to run our business all year round.

We have a wildflower meadow of about 2 acres, another acre is an orchard and the rest is a work in progress.

Hi OP, you need an enzyme cleaner. No toxic chemicals in this, just an enzyme that breaks down the compound that smells in the urine. I use it on my patio which my puppy has urinated on. I live in Australia and this is what I use, I’m sure you can get it in the UK.

pet-lab.com.au/products/petlab-plus-synthetic-turf-cleaner?currency=AUD&variant=32614398361662&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&gclid=CjwKCAjwg4-EBhBwEiwAzYAlsiVT_Ich8C1r8bB84jXT5a_jGFuUqWP-UjKxBBgcAw4sxPvq0u2g6xoCVaAQAvD_BwE

Hi OP, you need an enzyme cleaner
Exactly.

When I had the same issue with the astroturf in our garden I couldn't find anything like the proper stuff that is in the link but enzymatic biological washing liquid did the trick.

Eww, just the thought of dogshit covered plastic turns my stomach. I'd never walk on it.

@TheWaif

Eww, just the thought of dogshit covered plastic turns my stomach. I'd never walk on it.

What an odd thought? Bet you walk over grass and not think that?

Because it's clearly not going to break down as quickly on plastic and grass won't retain the smell of shit?

I actually do think about dogshit on grass too tbh. Our local park is disgusting for it. I've seen so many picnics there recently too 😬

We are about to get it. We only have a tiny lawn, with a big flower bed and the dog wee has killed the grass, yellow patches all the way round.

The guy told me that some of the artificial lawn actually absorbs the wee on the backing, so you need one that has a different backing. Hopefully he is right as I don’t want a smelly lawn, but is it so awful, yellow and wrecked. I have wrestled with it for 15 years even before the dog and it is rubbish (former brown field site).