Viewing 21 posts - 1 through 21 (of 21 total)
  • Fake lawn opinions/reviews
  • neillys75
    Free Member

    Got a hard landscaped back garden at new house, no soil in sight!
    Thinking about some turf or fake lawn covering an area about 8m by 7m.

    If I turf I have to get topsoil in dig out existing hard base or build up but was thinking about some fake grass with matting or something under?

    Any one got any experience the fake lawns?

    dooosuk
    Free Member

    Was thinking about this myself recently but the artificial lawns are so much more expensive than real turf for anything that doesn’t look like a greengrocers shelf. Then you still need to joint the matting, edge and coat with sand and brush in. So you’ll be looking at probably £1000+ for fake or £200 for turf & top soil.

    I’m about to start digging up the patio in the backyard in prep for turf this weekend. With a breaker tool it shouldn’t be too much hard work.

    rosscopeco
    Free Member

    We had a 40m2 area of the back garden astro’d several years ago and it one of the best things we’ve done in terms of having an ‘all season’ patch for the kids. You’ll see that we added a small extension on, I didn’t manage to get the same stuff but hey ho, it works for us.

    Here in sunny Glasgow, and especially where we live, the ground is 80% clay so everything stays soaked for 9 months of the year…and then some.

    Regardless of the weather: rain, snow & sun it requires no more cutting, feeding etc which translates as ‘less time swearing at the lawnmower and more time doing other enjoyable stuff’. All it needs is a wee brush every now and then. I’ve even had the hoover out on it!

    For the record, I never put any sand down on it and it stays down fine, regardless of what the kids do. The trick is making sure the sub base if well compacted. use sharp sand and not builders sand. The latter won’t compact and stays fluid like.

    It’s also great fun on a sunny day as the kids squirt some fairy liquid on it with a wee touch of water and they then use the slid to skid along for miles…or until they hit the fence at the bottom!

    Oh, and no more mud being dragged into the house by the little darlings…arguably one of the best ‘marriage’ aids around!

    [url=https://flic.kr/p/nDKsAT]Untitled[/url] by Rosscopeco, on Flickr

    [url=https://flic.kr/p/nktt1g]Untitled[/url] by Rosscopeco, on Flickr

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    mark90
    Free Member

    Need to do something with our garden. Considering real or fake. The need not to cut the grass is very appealing. My main concern though is being able to pitch tents after we have been away to allow for drying.

    brakes
    Free Member

    neighbours have it, in-laws have it – both went for expensive options and it is amazing stuff. it even feels nice, although not as nice as the real stuff.
    mate did a DIY job with cheaper stuff and it’s ok but it has ruffled in places.

    I’d say it’s worth it if you do it right. I’d do it as I have a patchy lawn that takes a lot of effort to maintain, but I’m not prepared to spend what it would cost to do a decent job at the moment.

    kayak23
    Full Member

    Opinions wanted?
    Ok.

    It looks totally ridiculous and pretty much represents what is wrong with modern humanity. All this inconvenient nature around us will never do…

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKd06s1LNik&feature=kp[/video]

    Sorry.
    I await my flaming… 😀

    kimbers
    Full Member

    i agree with kayak

    bad for the environment too, in germany they tax you for it!

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    I like cutting the grass. It’s a ritual, getting your strips right, the smell, how it transforms the garden.

    Don’t like the fake stuff myself, but I can appreciate why people have it. People across the road are having it done. It appears to necessitate having a vast amount of topsoil / vegetation removed first. The pile of debris outside their house would have made an immense tabletop!

    brakes
    Free Member

    pretty much represents what is wrong with modern humanity.

    can you expand on this?
    is it better to have fake grass, or to gravel/ concrete/ tarmac it over?

    Houns
    Full Member

    Hate the stuff. Sorry but that “lawn” in the pictures above looks ghastly

    tenfoot
    Full Member

    Not keen on the stuff, myself. And as I do all my bike cleaning / maintenance in the back garden, it wouldn’t be practical either.

    hooli
    Full Member

    Personally I think it look awful, even the high end stuff.

    I don’t see cutting the grass as a chore, take 30 or so minutes and is quite relaxing after a long day in an office.

    DezB
    Free Member

    Hang on a few minutes and a spammer will be along to advertise his wares… they wait in the short plastic grass for these threads.. then they pounce (usually).

    simons_nicolai-uk
    Free Member

    I know two people who’ve had it done. The first had a tiny garden and a dog which turned it into a mudbath. Looked much better afterwards

    The other has a terraced garden and 2 young boys -they’ve had the ‘sports’ level done so the boys can play football or cricket without playing in mud. Looks good so far.

    Far better than concreting as it is still porous – ie you’re not creating more run off/flood risk. Short cut lawn, heavily treated with weedkiller to keep any ‘undesirable’ plants at bay is about as unnatural an environment as you can get for wildlife anyway. Do something more natural around it and you can still provide a home for wildlife.

    busydog
    Free Member

    We’ve had it for about 2 years and I love it–but we live in a desert and the amount of water it takes to keep a lawn really looking good gradually became more and more prohibitive as water rates skyrocketed.
    Isn’t cheap if you get the top end product, but in our situation, considering the cost of water, really will pay for itself. It does take a little work to keep it clear of windblown stuff, falling leaves, seeds etc., but no more than the care of real grass.

    ski
    Free Member

    8 out 10 cats prefer to dump on fake grass 😉

    twinw4ll
    Free Member

    Someone by us had all their front garden block paved then covered it in artificial grass, what a tool.

    wingnuts
    Full Member

    We have courtyard garden that is hard landscaped. It looked a bit brutal so we got some offcuts from a mate to lay out and see how it looked. Transformed the appearance and so we did it properly put two strips down properly. They are about 1m x 4m each. I’m sure that if it was great big area the uniformity of the colour would make it look naff, but small patches of colour are good.

    busydog
    Free Member

    the uniformity of the colour would make it look naff

    That was one of our concerns when we first started looking at it, but the one we selected has some brownish blades inter-woven into it which gives a very real look.
    Another concern we had was the intense 300+ days of sunshine we get, but after 2 years, no fading or color change so far

    woody21
    Free Member

    We have a courtyard garden – horrible concrete. Ten sacks of sand some fake grass and it looks really good, since laying it last spring we have used the courtyard (ok backyard) more than in the previous ten years

    mattzzzzzz
    Free Member

    It’s all relative, if you have a well drained flat area then grass all the way
    I have a three tier small garden two dogs and it’s poorly drained and it’s shaded in areas most of the day- I’ve re turfed three times in the last ten years and it still looks shite
    Next year I will go for fake grass- best I can afford

Viewing 21 posts - 1 through 21 (of 21 total)

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