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Home: Turf of a nation
It's not your grandfather's polyethylene grass-like ground covering

by Marty Olmstead

Conscientious gardeners wised up 30 years ago to the fact that water is a scarce and valuable commodity. They went from drought-tolerant, Mediterranean-style landscapes to trying seriously to embrace all-out xeriscaping. Meanwhile, lawns shrank from lush expanses to 6-by-6-foot squares of green, hardly large enough to accommodate a chaise. What to do? It's hard to set out a lawn chair amid those tall, waving, natural grasses. And badminton? Forget it.

People who just gave up and either paved over their greenscape or installed something akin to AstroTurf were laughed out of the garden club, not to mention the neighborhood beautification committee.

Now there really is an answer to the question: Can I have green and still stay green?

From local concerns to corporate behemoths, dozens of companies produce and install synthetic ground coverings that look and feel more like the real thing than ever before. These outfits are riding a wave of popularity among homeowners who want to cut down on water consumption and/or who are tired of spending so much time mowing, weeding, feeding and replacing their lawns. It's been estimated that the average mower-jockey spends 40 hours a year just trimming those constantly growing blades.

The water situation is not going to improve anytime soon. While the Marin Municipal Water District has yet to impose rationing, a state-wide water conservation effort mandates a 15 percent reduction in water consumption. How's it going so far? The Sonoma County Water Agency (which provides Russian River water to parts of Marin, accounting for about 25 percent of the county's supply) reported earlier this month that North Bay residents fell short of that figure. Its customers used 853 acre-feet of water between July 1 and July 4 this year, 61 acre-feet above the targeted 792 acre-feet. Granted, some of those days saw temperatures above 100, but in any event, it's not a good start.

Aesthetics seems to have been the main reason homeowners have resisted replacing their real lawns with a synthetic version. The good news is that, like almost everything else in our lives, artificial lawns have benefited enormously from recent technological advances.

"The technology has come light-years in the past few years," says Mark Bradford, founder of Bay Area Synthetic Grass. "Polyethylene [and other substances] don't look so much like AstroTurf."

To be fair to AstroTurf, which made its reputation by supplying sports fields across America with a color closer to lime Jell-O than real grass, that company began selling residential landscaping systems in 2001. It produces AstroLawn, which, while fake as a three-dollar bill, does in fact look a lot like the real thing. Apparently, Fido won't know the difference either; cleanup, whether from an animal's deposits or fallen leaves, is supposed to be a snap.

"The earlier artificial surfaces introduced in the '70s were hard and scratchy," said Bradford. "Players slid, got cut and bruised on it. [The industry] began experimenting with better materials to find the best properties, like softness."

The improvements in color, he said, were a matter of trial and error over time.

At present, there are some 240 varieties of synthetic lawns, turf and the like. The manufacturing considerations are myriad: sewn vs. glued; stitch rate; tufting gauge; face weight; backings; yarn size and more. Factor in other elements such as cost, professional or owner installation, cleanup and disposal expenses, design consultation and warranties, and homeowners could understandably be baffled to the point of paralysis.

The best way to approach the choices might be budget-based: Homeowners should decide if they want someone else to handle it all or to undertake some or all of the work involved. If your yard is level and not particularly encumbered, it might make sense to handle the initial tasks rather than pay professional prices.

Professionals charge not only for installation, but also for removing the customer's existing grass and dirt or rocks.

"If we do it, it costs between $2 and $4 a square foot. Or the customer can do it. He might save on labor, but spend the same in terms of time and money," said Bradford. "We haul it away and properly dispose of the grass and dirt, which includes a fee for dumping."

Homeowners considering installing their own fake grass should ask themselves questions such as: How beautiful does the lawn have to be? How much wear and tear will be involved? How much can be saved in terms of the maintenance and supplies involved in keeping up a real grass lawn?

Waterless Grass boasts its turf as "the most realistic synthetic lawn grass on the market," thanks to its multi-fiber design. The system is UV-protected soft polyethylene that is spring-set during the manufacturing process to create a mat-resilient lawn the company claims resembles Kentucky Blue Grass.

A number of companies, including Waterless Grass, operate through an authorized independent dealership network. Mark Bradford worked for a similar outfit, whose owner left town, so he was fortunate to more or less inherit a crew experienced in the installation process. Based in San Jose, his company works all over the Bay Area.

Prices vary widely, as do estimates. Competition is a good thing for the consumer, but details such as terrain, site access, distance of base material to the site and access are also factored in. In some cases, companies will provide bids if the customer submits photographs, drawings and/or landscaping plans.

Some companies charge a flat fee per square foot, but some, including Bradford's, use a sliding scale so that the bigger the project, the lower the cost per square foot, starting at a minimum of $25 for 100 square feet and dropping to $8 to $10 for 2,000 square feet. If the homeowner does the installation, he or she can find reputable materials for $1.50 to $7 per square foot.

Of course, extras cost extra. AstroTurf, for example, also sells AstroShield, an antimicrobial product that homeowners can apply themselves and is said to eliminate 99 percent of bacteria, fungi, mold, mildew and algae.

Anyone interested in artificial turf should also inquire about warranties and guarantees for both installation and manufacturing materials, which should be good for at least 25 and eight years, respectively.

If the job is done right, all the neighbors may well turn green with envy.

No-muss, no-fuss lawns

Bay Area Synthetic Grass, www.bayareasyntheticgrass.com ; 888/490-8570.

AstroLawn, www.astrolawn.com; 800/723-8873.

Waterless Grass, ww.waterlessgrass.com .

All-Turf is a New Jersey company. See its Web site for general turf info at www.all .

Turf Solutions Group does not have West Coast locations, but its Web site has useful information: www.turfsolutionsgroup.com ; the toll-free number is 877/586-1363.