Real grass vs. artificial lawn - which is better?
A few years ago, at the request of a client, we installed a fake lawn in a small city garden. I'll be honest, I wasn't keen. At the time, as a garden designer, the idea of using artificial grass went against everything I believed in. But now I'm not so sure.
The choice of fake lawn a few years ago wasn't great, all the samples I received looked artificial and felt plastic to the touch. But now things have moved on a lot.
We recently finished designs for a project with two gardens. The client, a property developer, insisted on fake lawns as the gardens are to be as low maintenance as possible. So once again we searched the internet and I have to admit that the number of suppliers now selling this product surprised me. It seems that there has been an artificial grass boom over the last few of years!
A week later the office started to fill with new samples, some of which were as plastic and artificial looking as the ones that arrived two years previous. However, most suppliers also now have a range of 'luxury' grasses that not only look real but feel real too. Thanks to the advances in artificial grass I will now happily recommend it to clients for situations where real lawns would struggle. This is not to say that real lawns aren't the number one choice, but in city gardens where space is tight and people just don't have the time to mow, scarify, top dress and feed a real lawn, fake grass comes out on top!
