I used to walk in a neighborhood where one homeowner had fake grass. He did it so he could ignore his "lawn." It was the ugliest lawn on the block because it always had leaves on it. The leaves do not seem to decompose sitting on top of plastic grass. If he would just blow the leaves off every week he might have gotten away with it.

I guess you will have to
get a fake lawnmower to cut it.

Might as well get a fake John Deere.

"Would you put in grass or fake grass or something else?"

If you are interested in getting support from GardenWeb for the use of fake grass - to validate your intention of use, I think you're in the wrong place. We enjoy growing things here :-)

Our local high school installed it over their sports fields - which is acceptable, due to it's durability and the utility application. But IMHO, there is NO way I would ever consider installing it over my home grounds . . . for all the obvious reasons.

Thanks Corvette, your sarcasm is really helpful. Archdiver, I'm not here to get support, just opinions that will hopefully help me make my decision. I live in San Diego, there is a water crisis, and as for "growing things..." well, a lawn is really the antithisis of a "garden".

Dchall, thanks for the input. My lawn is not visible from the street, so I doubt anyone would be offended. Someone down the street from me has one, and it does look really fake. I'm not from here, and we are on SEVERE water restrictions (can only water for 5 minutes 3x a week). I can't imagine things getting worse but sure they will. Where I am from, it rained enough that I never had to water my beautiful, lush, never patchy, never fertilized lawn. I'm a bit spoiled that way. The thought of having "brown lawn" like so many here for half the year is not appealing at all. They actually "go brown" and it's encouraged during the summer. That's why I'm thinking of other alternatives...

fake grass
patio stones with some grass around it
etc...

I'd like to make it sustainable. If a person had asked me 5 years ago about fake grass I would have laughed them off their chair. But living here has changed my perspective. I'd rather water my bamboo, cannas, gardenias, ferns, etc. than waste my water ration of a strip of green.

With all due respect, you asked for opinions, I gave you mine. If I could not have real grass due to water issues, then I would not have a lawn. Research native plants that don't require much water - wild cacti, desert flora - ANYTHING other than "fake" grass. It's similar to preferring to use plastic wood grain in place of real wood, simply because you never have to refinish it.

silversword said:

"Archdiver, I'm not here to get support, just opinions that will hopefully help me make my decision."

It's obvious you're seeking support for using plastic "grass". If those are the only opinions you will accept - than just do it.

In The Phoenix area, I saw "lawns" that were just white gravel painted green. Since there were a number of lawns like that, they didn't look out of place. If you're the only one doing it, it would probably look odd, but you might find people stopping by to ask how to go about doing it.

With the severe water restrictions you've got (and looking at less water down the road) a fake lawn might make sense. You might be able to keep a green lawn using buffalo grass, but you'd probably want to see if you could get a variance on the watering. It would do better if you watered every other week for 15 minutes than if you water 3x a week for 5 minutes. You could point out that you'd use 1/2 as much water doing that.

Honestly, archdiver, I'm not here to get support for fake grass. I'm just feeling it out. I grew up in the rainforest. We didn't have fake anything. Now I live in So. Cal, where EVERYTHING is fake.

I need an area where my kids can run around. I understand planting in desert-scape (as they call it here) and that's great for in garden beds. But desert flora is dangerous for kids and animals, and is only good on the edges. Therefore, a cacti garden is not going to work. We did raised beds throughout most of the yard so we can have controlled drip irrigation and are working on lowering our water usage as much as possible. I have never used pesticides, always organic gardener. And our space for lawn is very very small.

When in Rome...

In the dry areas of my home state there are people who have gravel lawn. Still not good for kids playing...

Sorry for seeming unsympathetic silversword, but being over on the right coast - especially in southern New England during this past, VERY wet growing season - lawn watering was the least of our concerns. So, I couldn't relate to your drought conditions. Also, your post appeared to be somewhat of a joke with your wording choice of - "Fake" grass, instead of synthetic . . . now I understand.

" . . . Do as the Romans do", since as was implied by others, you will simply blend into the So Cal mainstream plastic society. ;-)

No problem Arch. I had the same issue when I moved here. I guess synthetic grass would have been clearer, but I just think of it as fake. Astroturf on steroids.

Since absolutely no one will see it unless they drive up our driveway, get out of their car and walk behind our garden gate... It's not really an issue of blending in or doing as the Jones' are with their lawn.

It's sustainability, it's making sure our water bill doesn't hit the roof, and that the kids can play on a nice surface. I think there's a place for this kind of grass, I'm just not sure it's on my front lawn!! But I see people here doing it and a lot more since the water rationing has gone into place this year.

Soooooo being from a very wet location myself, I'm a bit new to this whole "have to feed/water/fertilize/maintain a lawn" sort of thing. My grass always just grew beautifully. Then I'd take my riding mower and my weedwacker and 3 hours later it would be finished. Yes, my lawn was that big.

To mow my lawn area today would take all of 10 minutes. Maybe 15 if I had to put gas and counted taking it out of the garage.

BPGREEN - Thank you for the tips. There really aren't any variances. If someone spots a person watering for longer than the allocated minutes they can turn them in for a $500 fine. Kind of steep. I agree a deep root watering for most plants is more beneficial. But the city still waters at noon, go figure.

Too bad about the inflexibility. We don't have any real restrictions here. The biggest restrictions we've had was restrictions to 2x a day between 6 PM and 10 AM and some people really thought they were going to lose their lawns. The biggest problems most lawns here have are caused by excess water (in the desert).

I foresee those things changing, so I've been planting native and low water use grasses and this summer, I only watered 5 times (about every other week).

Buffalo grass (or buffalo grass and blue grama) might still stay green for you with your restrictions, but I'd water less often even if I couldn't water deeply.

But the artificial turf may yet be your best choice.

I don't have any problem with synthetic lawns as long as they're installed correctly and kept up as required. The biggest concern for me, and the reason I don't want to put in synthetic turf is because of the cost. A person at a place that I talked said it was 9 dollars a square foot installed and that that was a good price.

Ouch. I don't know how much lawn area anyone else has but I can't spend 180K plus on that stuff. Maybe I should have priced it elsewhere but at even half that price, it's still too expensive.

Hi Ingersol,
I have a very small area, that's one of the reasons I'm even considering it. Maybe 10x20 in the front and 20x40 in the back. It is expensive, and if my areas were any bigger I couldn't do it.

BPGreen, what do you mean people thought they'd lose their lawns? It's not good to water in the heat of the day even if a person has all the water they need.

Hardly any lawns on my block are green, they're all brown from the summer (common in San Diego). I think that looks much worse than fake grass.

Check this out.

Here is a link that might be useful: SYNLawn

Metal, do you represent that company?

One thing I'm also concerned with is the fumes/lead issue that has been coming up and the real environmental impact. It's the whole fake Christmas tree v.s. real Christmas tree all over again. I'm on the fence on that one too!!! So far I've just opted to buy a living tree every year, but then there's the problem of doing something with them after the holidays. I can't plant them all!!

"BPGreen, what do you mean people thought they'd lose their lawns?"

Many people around here were convinced that they had to water three times a day every day or the lawns would die. With the watering "restrictions" they cut back to twice a day, but they thought their lawns needed more water than that and that watering "only" twice a day would kill the grass.

6,000 dollars?
For fake grass?
When it rains really hard, where will the water go?
You will get occasional down pours.
Personally, I would buy the buffalo grass.
Try it next year, what have you got to loose, really?

At first I thought a synthetic lawn might be something really neat. The football stadium near here is absolutely beautiful. It looks and feels real. On a lawn I'm wondering what happens to everything that gets on the synthetic turf. Rain water (as mentioned above) leaves from neighborhood trees. Droppings left behind by dogs, cats, birds, and other uninvited guests. What about spilled food, garbage, soft drinks with sugar to attract ants, etc. etc. What about the hole where a tree limb fell and stuck through it. All these things will happen and will degrade the appearance of synthetic turf. Over time I feel like it would look worse and might be kind of nasty to walk out on.
The football field I spoke about earlier is isolated and professionally maintained. A synthetic turf at home would be a different story. Not something I'm willing to try.

Excellent points daystrom. I'm trying to imagine the anxiety a homeowner would have over trying to prevent and repair damage to his expensive liability - not to mention the absurdity of spreading drop cloths over the "lawn" before painting anything.