Artificial grass - experiences?
Discussion
hyphen said:
mk2driver said:
Good/bad points about it?
I currently have awful grass, but not yet tempted to swap for fake. Reason is simply that the wildlife like it, we get birds pecking around looking for worms and what not which makes up for the time taken to maintain it.pidsy said:
without any mud through the house. the rest of the garden is patio or sleeper'd so it all works as it should.
Nothing wrong with getting muddy, good fun. Plus you can have shoes for use in back garden and take off before coming in.
heads. Plus, it’s nice when it’s sunny to sit on.
Electronicpants said:
Got it and love it.
We have clay soil and after weeks of my labour, and many many pounds of installing drainage systems, aeration, sanding and everything else, none of which seemed to make a blind bit of difference, I can finally let the dogs and kids out the back 365 days a year, not just the summer months. 10 mins after it stops raining you can walk on it with your socks!
Would never go back to real grass now.
I get why if you've decent soil and a period property in the South East why it may seem like the kind of things the Rooney's are into, but for people with gardens that are basically unusable 10 months of the year as they resemble the horse scene from "Never ending Story", it's worth every penny.
This, our neighbours hedge sucks the ground dry in summer and shades it so much nothing will grow along the border, we also have a female dog and her piss kills grass. After 4 years of having the lawn relaid every spring and being a dog mud bath each winter we went high quality fake grass, 6 years later it's great we hoover it with a leaf blower twice a year and that's it. People who say it looks sWe have clay soil and after weeks of my labour, and many many pounds of installing drainage systems, aeration, sanding and everything else, none of which seemed to make a blind bit of difference, I can finally let the dogs and kids out the back 365 days a year, not just the summer months. 10 mins after it stops raining you can walk on it with your socks!
Would never go back to real grass now.
I get why if you've decent soil and a period property in the South East why it may seem like the kind of things the Rooney's are into, but for people with gardens that are basically unusable 10 months of the year as they resemble the horse scene from "Never ending Story", it's worth every penny.
t have never seen properly fitted high quality fake grass, we've had visitors stand inside and ask how I get the grass looking so good and when I've said it's fake they have had to go out and stand on it for a closer look as they'd not realised. Anywhere high impact or shaded where regular lawns turn into dirty patches fake is no contest. Low impact like a front lawn then not much point unless you really don't like mowing, we left the front natural. troika said:
What happens when your garden gets a visit from moles / badgers etc? Presumably the fake stuff will just be destroyed?
I guess they can try to tunnel through 6" of crushed compact hardcore and cut through the membrane before they get to heavy kevlar like base ? 
Ive not seen any squirrels armed with stanley knives yet, although never say never, it could happen one day !
bogie said:
troika said:
What happens when your garden gets a visit from moles / badgers etc? Presumably the fake stuff will just be destroyed?
I guess they can try to tunnel through 6" of crushed compact hardcore and cut through the membrane before they get to heavy kevlar like base ? Ive not seen any squirrels armed with stanley knives yet, although never say never, it could happen one day !
Black_S3 said:
Coin Slot. said:
Today in the Big Brother garden, the contestants talk about how they have to have artificial grass because no outside gardeners are allowed in, and they're too much of a celebrity to mow it themselves...
troika said:
bogie said:
troika said:
What happens when your garden gets a visit from moles / badgers etc? Presumably the fake stuff will just be destroyed?
I guess they can try to tunnel through 6" of crushed compact hardcore and cut through the membrane before they get to heavy kevlar like base ? Ive not seen any squirrels armed with stanley knives yet, although never say never, it could happen one day !
bogie said:
If you have a mole problem (we did 11 years ago when we moved in, we are on outskirts of a village) then whatever garden surface you have will have issues....well maybe unless you flood it with 8" of concrete, that might keep em from surfacing
Bloody nuisance aren’t they. I’m surrounded by fields in all directions so moles are unavoidable. I’ve found the most effective solution is to work out the time of day they are moving then just sit outside with a cup of tea and the shotgun and wait. It’s quite therapeutic, a bit like fishing. Not sure it would do much good to an artificial lawn!troika said:
bogie said:
If you have a mole problem (we did 11 years ago when we moved in, we are on outskirts of a village) then whatever garden surface you have will have issues....well maybe unless you flood it with 8" of concrete, that might keep em from surfacing
Bloody nuisance aren’t they. I’m surrounded by fields in all directions so moles are unavoidable. I’ve found the most effective solution is to work out the time of day they are moving then just sit outside with a cup of tea and the shotgun and wait. It’s quite therapeutic, a bit like fishing. Not sure it would do much good to an artificial lawn!RTB said:
The test is, if you were buying a house that already had it fitted would you consider it a pro or would your heart sink a little bit?
My heart would sink....
Definite benefit for me, would have saved me the money I shall spend doing it myself... it certainly didn't put off the people who bought my last house either... and the rented house I installed it in in Dubai, when I was showing potential new tenants around, the family who eventually rented it, did so only on the condition that the landlady "bought the garden" from me.My heart would sink....
Kermit power said:
Black_S3 said:
Coin Slot. said:
Today in the Big Brother garden, the contestants talk about how they have to have artificial grass because no outside gardeners are allowed in, and they're too much of a celebrity to mow it themselves...
There was grass there before we moved in, but not long after we moved in the dogs and kids had ploughed it all up and turned into a mud pit.
The very back garden you can just see is still grass, but that area backs onto a nature reserve and it's very boggy. I'm having that area decked soon so there will be no grass at the rear, just the front garden which is a lot bigger and the kids and dogs aren't allowed to play there.
Overall there's still plenty of real grass, hedges and flowers etc, so the gardener earns a wage and nature does have some involvement, it's not quite as sterile as that picture looks.
mondeoman said:
6 dogs and the Somme out the back, 144m2 of mud and pooop means I NEED astroturf, so, despite the naysayers, has anyone got any recommendations ?
We just cant live with the mud throughout the house 24/7, and a live in cleaner isnt an option.
LazyLawn do a good job in my experience.We just cant live with the mud throughout the house 24/7, and a live in cleaner isnt an option.
mondeoman said:
6 dogs and the Somme out the back, 144m2 of mud and pooop means I NEED astroturf, so, despite the naysayers, has anyone got any recommendations ?
We just cant live with the mud throughout the house 24/7, and a live in cleaner isnt an option.
Don't call it Astroturf, I think that makes the artificial grass experts twitch We just cant live with the mud throughout the house 24/7, and a live in cleaner isnt an option.
We have four Border Collies (and four chickens) and sounds like exactly the same problems. Getting some artificial grass was the best thing we ever did. Being able to open the back door and let the dogs go out and do morning / evening ablutions without having to then mop half the garden from the hall / lounge is worth every penny, We're lucky in that we have a dodgy shaped garden so have sectioned one bit off and laid the artificial grass there and kept the other bit natural. So we have a "winter/animals" side and then in the summer we can give the hooligans full reign over the garden when it has recovered.
Do your research and most importantly get samples. Artificial grass ranges from thin shonky matting that a greengrocer wouldn't be seen dead putting in their window display to really sophisticated natural looking woven fibres that you are hard pushed to tell the difference from natural grass.
This was ours when it was laid in 2016:
(will take a pic tomorrow in the daylight as an update)
One of the guys from lazy lawn who did some of ours has gone out on his own using a different manufacturer- he charges £60 psqm all inc (vat,supply,ground prep,install).
He’s making an absolute fortune. He’s booked all the way through till July for this year.
I’d rather buy it and lay it myself.
He’s making an absolute fortune. He’s booked all the way through till July for this year.
I’d rather buy it and lay it myself.
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