Fake grass

[Hitch]

Our garden is in need of a serious revamp.

Currently about 90% old and uneven paving on 4 levels,
I'm considering some fake grass for one level.

Anyone here use it? what sort of price range is yours, i'm thinking along the lines of £10/m2

[arco_iris]

IMHO cheap artificial grass is....... to be avoided. Go for the very best that you can afford.

DYOR, installation is not as simple as you might think. Your budget sounds very low, is that material only? They reckon on £60 - £75 /sq.m. installed professionally.

[Hitch]

Have you got some then?

If £10 is unrealistic, i could up it a bit, but certainly wont be spending £60+m2 that much. The area im looking at is probably 25m2.

[arco_iris]

If £10 is unrealistic, i could up it a bit, but certainly wont be spending £60

Bear in mind, there is a difference between "materials only" and "installed" prices, somebody (as you do in your job) earns a daily crust out of the latter.

[Someone-Else]

From my observations:
Artificial grass sounds a good idea, lay it down, no maintenance, forget about it.

In reality, you need to give it a very flat stable base, you need to clean it on an as and when basis (Vacuum cleaner, nope not joking) if you have pets, forget it. In short don't go there.

One of the things about it is being outside it gets all sorts of airborne stuff, that on its own you don't see, but after some time it accumulates and has to be removed (Wash and vacuum) You can't lay it directly on soil as worms and any seeds you missed will still grow through, so you have more expense than you first thought.

I would ask have you considered gravel (lots of it) yes it's not as nice, yes it has to be maintained (not as much as artificial grass) but its considerably cheaper and can look nice if well done

[OchAye]

Green concrete

[camallison]

Green concrete

Our first rented house had tarmac for a front garden and the landlord had it sprayed green.

Colin

[OchAye]

Our first rented house had tarmac for a front garden and the landlord had it sprayed green.

It was our standing joke with my next door neighbour. In his younger days he spend a lot of time looking after a fine lawn, then he found flight s(t)imulator and other things. Anyway, he died ... I am now waiting to see if at the end of the summer there will be any grass or just moss and bald patches.

Back to Hitch. It is understandable if you don't want to put the time and effort to look after grass. I don't get it though why bother having pretend grass, surely there must be other ways of making that part of the garden usable and looking good ... patio a couple of chairs blah blah.

[etaf]

we installed a small piece in a front garden which was north facing and after returfing twice because of moss - we saw it on display at the idea home exhibition in the early 1990's around 1995 - I can not remember how much i paid - but it was NOT a significant amount
square approx 5m x 4m
reasonably flat
we just put some sand on the old garden and a lot of weed killer
then some weed membrane - supplied with the artificial grass
tent type hooks to keep it in place
Then some small rubber pellets all over the top - to weigh it down - again supplied with the grass

it lasted well, had the occasional weeds come through - which we pulled out
cleaned up the occasional animal waste
Always looked good and during the winter and droughts - often got comments from passes by

i can not remember who we purchased off - but it was well worth it and would do it again , looked very natural
certainly NOT expensive, as we were broke at the time, so would have had to really consider the expense V returfing yet again

[Hitch]

Its quite an enclosed garden, and really bad stoney ground.
None of the neighbours manage to keep decent grass, bar one. Shes out watering it, feeding it, and whatever else every single day.

[sammy.se]

I paid £720 for 42m2 two years ago.
It was a 37mm pile, three strands (different colours).

I love it. Makes the garden a joy to use.
When pricing up, also factor in the weed membrane needed underneath, and sand infill that goes over the top.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[Someone-Else]

Well if you add more gravel then no one will notice

But it does have a serious point, gravel on its own with the odd feature can look really nice.

gravel1.jpg (381.83 KiB) Viewed 3639 times

Sadly this is NOT my garden, but I do have lots of gravel

[Grendel]

Green concrete

I had a customer thinking along those lines but in his case he got me to cover the concrete in fake grass.
Whether it's agood idea or not I did learn one thing and that there seems to be a knap or a direction the grass lies. My customer had purchased an end of roll type of thing which wasn't wide enough to cover the patio in one piece but was too long so he got me to use the offcut to fill in the space. It did mean that piece was laid at 90 degrees to the larger piece and the difference was noticeable although e was fine about it.