Have you been tempted by this artificial grass craze?

The British obsession with a perfect lawn is amusing. I’m always reminded of Asterix in Britain, where we see a Briton “manicuring” his lawn with a tiny sickle, and later stopping Roman trespassers, saying, “my garden is smaller than your Rome, but my pilum is bigger than your sternum”. Classic.

Pros and cons. If the artificial lawn lets water through (does it?), it’s better than monoblocking. And it saves energy as it doesn’t need any mowing or watering. But yes, it’s made of plastic and is of no interest to wildlife that I can think of.

Time to accept that if you feel you must have a lawn, it will be a living, evolving thing? Brown and hard in the summer, so what, and I would bet that more kids in the world play football in fields of dirt than not. And what on earth is wrong with a mossy lawn covered in “weeds”? A perfect lawn is a green desert to wildlife.

But what if you physically can’t mow your lawn/meadow anymore? I know of an old lady who had an artifical lawn put down because of that. Not an easy issue.

I would not replace my real lawn with artificial grass, but I have used it in 2 places.
Under bird feeders just becomes a mud patch with all the birds and squirrels, plus my wife topping up the feeders. So a small (1sqM) patch seems t do the trick, but it does stand out from the real grass around it. So far it less water through with issues, but is odd to walk on. That’s probably a bad install by me.
The other place is a small decked area (2-3sqM) with a bench seat on it. This had old decking but it just rotted away. So some OSB boards and artificial grass on top looks much much better. It’s the same grass as above but as distinct from the lawn it does not standout as different. It’s also nice to sit on the bench with bare feet in the “grass”.
I think these days the artificial grass is much better than it was (varying lengths, brown strands, right shades), so it’s worth considering for the right location.

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The next development will probably be living carpets in our houses. Just unroll and water. Imagine stepping out of bed onto a flowering meadowland, surrounded by camomile in the lounge………..

Many years ago, when Hong Kong started exporting polythene flowers, our next door neighbour surrounded his back and front “lawns” with these everlasting plastic blooms in hollow concrete blocks. I say “lawns” because he had concreted over where the grass had been and then painted the surface green. Clearly he had great foresight.

Our current neighbour has covered his large front “garden” in pink tarmac, but as a concession one corner is a quarter circle of artificial grass. I always feel guilty when I cut my real hedge and bits drop on the astroturf – feel I should get my Hoover out and clean up. However, he has a play area for children at the bottom of his garden also covered in artificial turf, and that has some sense to it.

With all the silly “garden” features we see at Chelsea I think artificial turf is the least of our worries. A step up from covering decent natural ground in pavers, concrete slabs, decking, gravel, conservatories, and anything else that is unnatural and does not drain (except gravel).

Personally I like a natural green area of clover, moss and grass that makes stripes when I mow; that’s my lawn. Each to his own – a garden is supposed to be an outside room and we all have different tastes.

My grass cuttings end up in the brown bin for which I pay the local council £37 per annum and pay the local garden centre again when buying compost to repot or top up the plant pots!

Gardening is BB nowadays but keeps you active and fit and the rewards are very evident and pleasing, so let’s confine the plastic stuff to the stands of large exhibition and show centres.

I always felt that the grass was always greener on the other side

This reminds me of the story about when a person of a particular nationality saw a lorry carrying load of rolls of turf, and remarked at how rich the person must be to be able to send his lawn away to be cut.