Artificial Grass

Miles16v

I want to put artificial grass onto a section of my garden of about 4 x 5m.

I've had samples from one supplier and there are a couple in the range that I quite like, but I'm aware that there are plenty of other suppliers with other varients at quite different prices.

Its also quite hard to tell what the turf will be like when layed when you've only got a 4" sample to look at.

Has anyone got any recommendations of suppliers and ranges that they have found to be good quality and value?

The best one we've seen so far is this at £25 per sq m (35mm tri colour):

http://greatgrass.co/prestige-grass.html/

Hoping to pick something up in a January sale!

moonpenny

Have you got some lawn down already?

I would imagine the best way is to put the small samples outside next to the grass to see which is the most natural colour and go from there.

EpsomOldie

Hello Miles, there’s a model garden at RHS Wisley which uses artificial grass and it looks wonderful. As you can imagine, it gets plenty of wear. I can’t remember the manufacturer / supplier but you could ring / email Wisley to find out.

I found this Which report: http://royalartificialgrass.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/artificial-grass.pdf which includes a mention of the RHS garden. It’s a link from this supplier: http://www.royalgrass.com/ though I’m pretty sure that they weren’t the people who did Wisley.

I do recommend that you shop around and get plenty of samples and research the cost thoroughly. I was planning to put some artificial grass on a small area of my garden and once I’d factored in the cost of the preparation and levelling, substrate, tape and adhesive etc, it was an awful lot more than the £ per square metre than originally envisaged. And, like a lot of stuff, it’s the preparation that decides the success (or otherwise) of the final result, so I didn't think it could be skimped.

Even for a small area, it’s a major investment, not just in terms of money, but in appearance too.

Personally, I don’t think that a realistic picture of the final thing can be imagined from the samples sent by suppliers, or the bigger swatches at garden centres. It’s a bit like deciding on the colour of a wall from a little square of colour on a paint chart. If possible, I’d suggest asking the suppliers if there are reference sites that can be visited.

In the end, I decided against putting the artificial grass in my garden. I’m not trying to put you off...I just totted up the pluses and minuses and, for me, the minuses won by miles! For info, 'my' minuses were:

• Cost – loads more than originally envisaged (see above)
• Still needs maintenance (think moss, leaves, fox poo, mud and other debris)
• Not as resilient as real grass, e.g. damage from foxes and cats digging and scratching, hot barbecue things etc

Hope this helps.

Avoriaz

We are also considering a 4 x 5 metre area of artificial grass to replace our current lawn as the soil and drainage make growing and maintaining a decent real lawn very difficult.

In Chichester, West Sussex, Covers (a large centre for all things building and garden) have a 2 x 3 metre area laid out with one type of artificial grass. That gives a very good idea of what it looks like.

You should be able to find places near you that also do a reasonably sized display installation.

Or you could ask suppliers for examples of their product installed in areas, maybe public areas, that you can visit and inspect.

Artificial grass is increasing in popularity so you should be able to find a few places in your vicinity that will be worth looking at.