I'm interested because I am considering getting it for my garden as it will be easier to maintain.
Because I am often away, I find it difficult to maintain it and often find the grass looking yellow and generally unappealing. If i could find fake grass that looked realistic enough I would consider investing.
I would suggest investing in a drip irrigation system and a timer for it instead of purchasing something that will likely not be as nice as you hope.
x-jla
Dec 9, 13 12:47 pm
I hate artificial turf. It always looks fake. If you want your house to have the feel of the neighborhood in Edward Scissorhands or the Black Hole Sun video by Soundgarden then go for it, but I personally hate it.
curtkram
Dec 9, 13 1:20 pm
there have been a few articles praising this stuff. one of my alma maters used it for their football field (football is played with your hands over here). i bet it's expensive.
Oooh gwharton I love that idea. I've used Synlawn in interiors, but never residential. I may steal your idea.
gwharton
Dec 9, 13 2:57 pm
It makes a pretty cool rug. My house is a 1950 mid-century ranch that I completely gutted out and rebuilt in 2006. As part of that, I played up a lot of the indoor-outdoor living that single-level ranch homes are so well adapted for. The living room has a "grass" rug (on an engineered bamboo floor), and there's a big new patio area out front that is an "outdoor living/dining room". The 'living room' area of the patio has 18" pavers laid out in a pattern more reminiscent of a stone tile floor, with polished black mexican river pebbles to pick out the joints in contrast. And the 'dining room' is a concrete slab painted aquamarine blue. We have some outdoor-rated area rugs we put out in the summer with furniture, and the whole thing looks pretty good.
If you have dogs, you'll need to train them to stay off the 'grass' rug, though. Fair warning. It's not a problem once you make it clear it's a "no-go" zone, but they have a little trouble figuring that out at first. Fortunately, SynLawn is both washable (you can powerspray it clean if it gets dirty - how many persian carpets can you do THAT with?) and has an anti-microbial coating. :)
Kevin W.
Dec 9, 13 5:08 pm
No, I have all my own hair.
chatter of clouds
Dec 9, 13 5:19 pm
...no, wrong post
snooker-doodle-dandy
Dec 9, 13 7:53 pm
I always liked the way Bruce Goff used in his Tucson House....It was used on the underside of the roof eaves (soffitt). The stuff he used was orange if I recollect. The house has gone thru a couple of hands and the original stuff is gone.
will galloway
Dec 10, 13 3:22 am
i use it as floor mat in my flat. its almost realistic, and a leftover from a small meeting area i threw together in our lab at the university. The realistic stuff costs more so we didn't go for it, but it isn't entirely bad even if it looks a bit fake. I wouldn't recommend it for use outside somehow, though i can see the appeal of low maintenance.
I build houses in a semi-arid climate, so we frequently use artificial turf in lieu of real sod. Especially now that Texas has been in this sustained draught, causing our aquifer to drop, all leading to new water usage restrictions. There are a few things to know.
First, it's costly up front. If you plan on staying there for 5 years or more, it will more than pay for itself, but if the game plan is just waiting out capital gains, then go with Sod. In my area artificial runs about $8-10/sf installed. Sod and sprinkler in my area are about $3/sf.
It gets crazy hot in the summer time. Have you ever gone to check the mail barefooted in the summer time? And the concrete is blazing hot, so you step off on the lawn for relief? There will be the opposite of relief from turf. You will be astonished how hot it will get in direct sunlight in July.
Pets and leaves. They both make messes on your lawn. Right now you probably don't notice because you can just mow it all up. (At least I do. It turns into mulch, so I don't have to put a bunch of harsh fertilizer on my lawn). That's now how it works when you can't mow your turf. Some companies sell an attachment for a weedeater that works as a brush. Either way, you're going to have some issues because raking can mess up the leveling sand that holds down the turf, and while they say you can just hose down the dog mess, that only works if you catch it while it's fresh.
It looks all kinds of awkward in the winter months. While you may have the neatest looking lawn on the block in August, people will get a chuckle as they drive past in January.
All that said, you save tons of money in the long run. It's cheaper than long-term lawn maintenance. You don't have to water it (although some people do in the summer when they want to be outside without burning their feet). And you don't have to hire a lawn guy or plan your lawn maintenance around vacations in the summer time if you take extended trips. And there are some very realistic looking products these days. In the summer time, lots of times I have a hard time distinguishing between a well manicured lawn vs. a turf lawn. They've really come a long way.
Hope all this helps.
Wilma Buttfit
Dec 10, 13 12:48 pm
One of my neighbors has artificial turf, it looks ridiculous. My yard is xeriscape - no grass and no sprinklers.
rfuller
Dec 10, 13 12:54 pm
Xeriscape is against deed restrictions in much of my city. Enough people put up really ugly stuff early on with no regards to design, or location appropriate plant selection. So there are a few lawns in the older part of town that looked like Tuscan puked lava rocks and they completely ruined it for everyone else. Many of the new commercial buildings have it, and no one knows that it's xeriscape because there are no lava rocks or cactuses. I wish I was kidding. A properly done xeriscape can be absolutely beautiful.
Wilma Buttfit
Dec 10, 13 1:57 pm
I know what you mean, but that is too bad. For the record I only have 2 cactus and no lava rock. :)
Donna Sink
Dec 10, 13 4:55 pm
Oh my god. Xeriscape criminalized and people watering plastic to keep it cool? WTF, Texas?!?
snooker-doodle-dandy
Dec 10, 13 5:44 pm
lol.....everyone should be reading Jens Jensen....to set them straight about native landscaping. It is not rocket science. Thinking plastic grass in not in my architectural vocabulary. Thinking our front yard lawn is out the window this coming year. I say this because I don't think my lawn mower will fire up in the Spring. It is currently held together with duct tape and aluminum tape. Front yard is going to be and extension of a large planting bed we have in place. We are going to harvest some of the plant from the large planting bed and move them to our new cultivated area. Then we will do a wild flower mix and toss in some herbs and veggies for the cause. None of these require watering and we no longer have to mow the lawn at $4.69 a gallon nor buy the new lawn mower.
Nam Henderson
Dec 10, 13 8:46 pm
@snooker I always preferred weeding/to mowing. although driving a riding mower a'int bad...
shaping a yard via selective reduction/uprooting.
gwharton
Dec 10, 13 10:17 pm
I take a purely Nietzschean approach to landscape maintenance: what doesn't kill it makes it stronger.
Volunteer
Apr 2, 14 8:47 am
Get the kid next door to mow your lawn when you are gone. A decent new lawnmower only costs about $300 at Lowes and can be used to mulch leaves in the fall as well. Either leave the mulch on the lawn or switch the attachments and or go over the lawn again and bag the mulch. People who install artificial grass are the same ones who repair their house's beautiful copper plumbing with the plastic s---.
Volunteer
May 9, 14 7:23 am
So, we are supposed to be soooooooooo concerned with global warming but waste oil making plastic grass that is used to replace real turf. Real turf which converts CO2 to 02?
gwharton
May 9, 14 2:08 pm
Volunteer,
Don't you know that the whole point of sustainability/green design is conspicuous moralism? If you can't obviously show off how "green" you're being to differentiate yourself from those with lower status, what's the point?
Volunteer
May 9, 14 4:15 pm
Gwharton,
Like LEED! Worse heating and cooling and maintenance bills for more money and aggravation initially, but the LEED owner gets to put a plaque on his wall. Think I have got it now.
Jason Harper
Oct 31, 14 3:18 pm
Artificial grass is very convenient to set anywhere u want. But there are many factors involved regarding your selection and your requirements. There are many kinds of grass available according to you needs and pocket. So determine first what u need. There is no doudt that an artificial turf make your settings look very modern and contemporary . moreover u dont have to mow it.
proto
Nov 14, 14 12:10 pm
my FIL in socal has it
it looks pretty good and even feels pretty good underfoot
Larchinect
Feb 28, 15 11:42 am
Unfortunately, landscape (or landscaping) as they tend to call it serves little more purpose than garnishment (parsley around the pig) in some architects/builders/engineers eyes. This mindset can lead to very wasteful sites--unnecessary water usage, less efficient buildings, unnecessary maintenance, added strain to infrastructure and uselessness.
we also need to reduce front yard setbacks--no one uses them, Wastes water. If you have a front yard already, consider a Xeric garden. Native plants can be much more beautiful than lawn, have more seasonal variety, require almost no maintenance. Take a look at the book, the new American meadow garden.
Artificial turf requires maintenance too by the way--I've never installed it but I believe it is secured with sod staples. Lastly, consider hiring a good landscape architect--the cost for a plan will save you in the long run and give you a more sustainable, beautiful solution.
Larchinect
Feb 28, 15 11:46 am
By the way, there are also native and warm season turf alternatives. Don't install plastic.
hanrysmith
Feb 14, 18 11:49 am
I think this is a matter of convenience and hitching, if the first lawnmower was from EGO, then the likelihood that you will use this brand is even higher, given that in fact, all these brands are not so different, everyone has Both successful and unsuccessful models.
JLC-1
Feb 14, 18 12:44 pm
yes, the president - I'm balding, but I wouldn't think of getting artificial turf ever
turfbusiness
Apr 14, 18 4:00 am
As of late I have been hearing a considerable measure of good things about artificial grass. I didn’t understand that it was winding up so well known! One of the advantages recorded is self cleaning. How is manufactured grass self cleaning? I would love to learn m mineral about this, I should do some more research.
splinesbetweentheplace
Apr 14, 18 8:12 am
Current commonly available commercial artificial grass is quite wretched. Expensive and a pain in the ass to clean. "self cleaning" my ass. They can't make dog turds magically disappear.
Xeriscape/local climate appropriate landscaping is the way to go, Americans need to get over this whole lush green lawn fetish.
That's what our school systems always say. I swear, if we listened 100% to their landscape department, they'd put themselves out of a job. Asphalt the fields, cut down the trees, etc
Anyway this is from 2013 - what did you end up doing?
S W
May 12, 18 7:21 pm
My friends do, they also have a cat, he does not shit on it.
SneakyPete
May 21, 19 11:48 am
Archinect, please consider nuking any thread older than a few years that is resurrected by a bot.
Volunteer
Aug 12, 19 9:30 am
So, how much CO2 does the fake grass absorb and make into new fake grass, water vapor, and oxygen? How much oil does it take to manufacture the amount of fake grass produced every year?
x-jla
Oct 21, 20 10:55 am
To the contrary, real grass is actually very good at trapping co2.
SneakyPete
Jun 29, 20 12:14 am
This thread is spam bait, please purge or lock.
apscoradiales
Oct 12, 20 9:34 am
Hire a landscape maintenance contractor to cut and maintain the lawn.
I'm interested because I am considering getting it for my garden as it will be easier to maintain.
Because I am often away, I find it difficult to maintain it and often find the grass looking yellow and generally unappealing. If i could find fake grass that looked realistic enough I would consider investing.
The 4th one is particularly appealing to me http://www.tigerturflandscape.co.uk/products.aspx?category=lawns-gardens
I would suggest investing in a drip irrigation system and a timer for it instead of purchasing something that will likely not be as nice as you hope.
I hate artificial turf. It always looks fake. If you want your house to have the feel of the neighborhood in Edward Scissorhands or the Black Hole Sun video by Soundgarden then go for it, but I personally hate it.
there have been a few articles praising this stuff. one of my alma maters used it for their football field (football is played with your hands over here). i bet it's expensive.
http://www.fieldturf.com/
I have a 12-foot square piece of SynLawn with a padded backing I use as an area rug in my living room. It's actually quite realistic-looking.
http://www.synlawn.com/
Oooh gwharton I love that idea. I've used Synlawn in interiors, but never residential. I may steal your idea.
It makes a pretty cool rug. My house is a 1950 mid-century ranch that I completely gutted out and rebuilt in 2006. As part of that, I played up a lot of the indoor-outdoor living that single-level ranch homes are so well adapted for. The living room has a "grass" rug (on an engineered bamboo floor), and there's a big new patio area out front that is an "outdoor living/dining room". The 'living room' area of the patio has 18" pavers laid out in a pattern more reminiscent of a stone tile floor, with polished black mexican river pebbles to pick out the joints in contrast. And the 'dining room' is a concrete slab painted aquamarine blue. We have some outdoor-rated area rugs we put out in the summer with furniture, and the whole thing looks pretty good.
If you have dogs, you'll need to train them to stay off the 'grass' rug, though. Fair warning. It's not a problem once you make it clear it's a "no-go" zone, but they have a little trouble figuring that out at first. Fortunately, SynLawn is both washable (you can powerspray it clean if it gets dirty - how many persian carpets can you do THAT with?) and has an anti-microbial coating. :)
No, I have all my own hair.
...no, wrong post
I always liked the way Bruce Goff used in his Tucson House....It was used on the underside of the roof eaves (soffitt). The stuff he used was orange if I recollect. The house has gone thru a couple of hands and the original stuff is gone.
i use it as floor mat in my flat. its almost realistic, and a leftover from a small meeting area i threw together in our lab at the university. The realistic stuff costs more so we didn't go for it, but it isn't entirely bad even if it looks a bit fake. I wouldn't recommend it for use outside somehow, though i can see the appeal of low maintenance.
Perhaps, OP, you should rethink lawn. Your lawn is evil.
I build houses in a semi-arid climate, so we frequently use artificial turf in lieu of real sod. Especially now that Texas has been in this sustained draught, causing our aquifer to drop, all leading to new water usage restrictions. There are a few things to know.
First, it's costly up front. If you plan on staying there for 5 years or more, it will more than pay for itself, but if the game plan is just waiting out capital gains, then go with Sod. In my area artificial runs about $8-10/sf installed. Sod and sprinkler in my area are about $3/sf.
It gets crazy hot in the summer time. Have you ever gone to check the mail barefooted in the summer time? And the concrete is blazing hot, so you step off on the lawn for relief? There will be the opposite of relief from turf. You will be astonished how hot it will get in direct sunlight in July.
Pets and leaves. They both make messes on your lawn. Right now you probably don't notice because you can just mow it all up. (At least I do. It turns into mulch, so I don't have to put a bunch of harsh fertilizer on my lawn). That's now how it works when you can't mow your turf. Some companies sell an attachment for a weedeater that works as a brush. Either way, you're going to have some issues because raking can mess up the leveling sand that holds down the turf, and while they say you can just hose down the dog mess, that only works if you catch it while it's fresh.
It looks all kinds of awkward in the winter months. While you may have the neatest looking lawn on the block in August, people will get a chuckle as they drive past in January.
All that said, you save tons of money in the long run. It's cheaper than long-term lawn maintenance. You don't have to water it (although some people do in the summer when they want to be outside without burning their feet). And you don't have to hire a lawn guy or plan your lawn maintenance around vacations in the summer time if you take extended trips. And there are some very realistic looking products these days. In the summer time, lots of times I have a hard time distinguishing between a well manicured lawn vs. a turf lawn. They've really come a long way.
Hope all this helps.
One of my neighbors has artificial turf, it looks ridiculous. My yard is xeriscape - no grass and no sprinklers.
Xeriscape is against deed restrictions in much of my city. Enough people put up really ugly stuff early on with no regards to design, or location appropriate plant selection. So there are a few lawns in the older part of town that looked like Tuscan puked lava rocks and they completely ruined it for everyone else. Many of the new commercial buildings have it, and no one knows that it's xeriscape because there are no lava rocks or cactuses. I wish I was kidding. A properly done xeriscape can be absolutely beautiful.
I know what you mean, but that is too bad. For the record I only have 2 cactus and no lava rock. :)
Oh my god. Xeriscape criminalized and people watering plastic to keep it cool? WTF, Texas?!?
lol.....everyone should be reading Jens Jensen....to set them straight about native landscaping. It is not rocket science. Thinking plastic grass in not in my architectural vocabulary. Thinking our front yard lawn is out the window this coming year. I say this because I don't think my lawn mower will fire up in the Spring. It is currently held together with duct tape and aluminum tape. Front yard is going to be and extension of a large planting bed we have in place. We are going to harvest some of the plant from the large planting bed and move them to our new cultivated area. Then we will do a wild flower mix and toss in some herbs and veggies for the cause. None of these require watering and we no longer have to mow the lawn at $4.69 a gallon nor buy the new lawn mower.
@snooker I always preferred weeding/to mowing. although driving a riding mower a'int bad...
shaping a yard via selective reduction/uprooting.
I take a purely Nietzschean approach to landscape maintenance: what doesn't kill it makes it stronger.
Get the kid next door to mow your lawn when you are gone. A decent new lawnmower only costs about $300 at Lowes and can be used to mulch leaves in the fall as well. Either leave the mulch on the lawn or switch the attachments and or go over the lawn again and bag the mulch. People who install artificial grass are the same ones who repair their house's beautiful copper plumbing with the plastic s---.
So, we are supposed to be soooooooooo concerned with global warming but waste oil making plastic grass that is used to replace real turf. Real turf which converts CO2 to 02?
Volunteer,
Don't you know that the whole point of sustainability/green design is conspicuous moralism? If you can't obviously show off how "green" you're being to differentiate yourself from those with lower status, what's the point?
Gwharton, Like LEED! Worse heating and cooling and maintenance bills for more money and aggravation initially, but the LEED owner gets to put a plaque on his wall. Think I have got it now.
Artificial grass is very convenient to set anywhere u want. But there are many factors involved regarding your selection and your requirements. There are many kinds of grass available according to you needs and pocket. So determine first what u need. There is no doudt that an artificial turf make your settings look very modern and contemporary . moreover u dont have to mow it.
my FIL in socal has it
it looks pretty good and even feels pretty good underfoot
Unfortunately, landscape (or landscaping) as they tend to call it serves little more purpose than garnishment (parsley around the pig) in some architects/builders/engineers eyes. This mindset can lead to very wasteful sites--unnecessary water usage, less efficient buildings, unnecessary maintenance, added strain to infrastructure and uselessness.
we also need to reduce front yard setbacks--no one uses them, Wastes water. If you have a front yard already, consider a Xeric garden. Native plants can be much more beautiful than lawn, have more seasonal variety, require almost no maintenance. Take a look at the book, the new American meadow garden.
Artificial turf requires maintenance too by the way--I've never installed it but I believe it is secured with sod staples. Lastly, consider hiring a good landscape architect--the cost for a plan will save you in the long run and give you a more sustainable, beautiful solution.
By the way, there are also native and warm season turf alternatives. Don't install plastic.
I think this is a matter of convenience and hitching, if the first lawnmower was from EGO, then the likelihood that you will use this brand is even higher, given that in fact, all these brands are not so different, everyone has Both successful and unsuccessful models.
yes, the president - I'm balding, but I wouldn't think of getting artificial turf ever
As of late I have been hearing a considerable measure of good things about artificial grass. I didn’t understand that it was winding up so
well known! One of the advantages recorded is self cleaning. How is
manufactured grass self cleaning? I would love to learn m mineral about
this, I should do some more research.
Current commonly available commercial artificial grass is quite wretched. Expensive and a pain in the ass to clean. "self cleaning" my ass. They can't make dog turds magically disappear.
Xeriscape/local climate appropriate landscaping is the way to go, Americans need to get over this whole lush green lawn fetish.
Forever Lawn
http://www.foreverlawn.com/?gc...
Asphalt is the new grass.
That's what our school systems always say. I swear, if we listened 100% to their landscape department, they'd put themselves out of a job. Asphalt the fields, cut down the trees, etc
I suggest a nice wildflower mix - it is native planting and should manage to survive on its own https://www.americanmeadows.co...
Instructions: https://tucsonbotanical.org/de...
Anyway this is from 2013 - what did you end up doing?
My friends do, they also have a cat, he does not shit on it.
Archinect, please consider nuking any thread older than a few years that is resurrected by a bot.
So, how much CO2 does the fake grass absorb and make into new fake grass, water vapor, and oxygen? How much oil does it take to manufacture the amount of fake grass produced every year?
To the contrary, real grass is actually very good at trapping co2.
This thread is spam bait, please purge or lock.
Hire a landscape maintenance contractor to cut and maintain the lawn.