Having a great lawn can make your neighbor go green with envy, but it’s a lot of effort, not to mention water. So, the question is, is the grass always greener if it’s fake? Let’s talk grass!
Here are five things you need to know:
- Every year, in California, we use roughly a third of the water in our homes on our landscapes! Basically, our gardens bathe more than we do!
- A plastic lawn can last for around 20 years. It’s durable, UV resistant, made of polyethylene — the same stuff they make plastic bags out of — and it’s a big market globally that will be worth nearly $60 billion by 2023.
- Plastic lawns have a short life span, can’t be re-laid or reseeded, and have to be rolled up and replaced and recycled. But, equally, we spray fertilizers and chemicals on grass that leaches off into the soil too.
- Mowing a lawn uses electricity or fossil fuels, but they don’t need extensive and intensive recycling as a plastic lawn does. They’re like a hairy carpet, though! You still have to remove litter, trash and moss. Some might say, we’re putting a plastic bag over Mother Earth’s face!
- How about we give up the lawn altogether and instead plant water-hardy shrubs and indigenous succulents to create a drought-tolerant landscape — it can still be green except in all meanings of the word. To find out more, visit here and search for the native plant list. It’ll bring up some excellent information, including a brilliant, free 28-page downloadable book!
If you ask me, I’d use all that water I could be using on my lawn to make cups of tea instead, but it’s down to you to decide! Which one you love mower — I mean more!