If you’ve got kids or dogs or both, and have a busy life, it’s tempting to think that artificial turf might be a good solution for your garden.

Marketed as a clean, low maintenance surface that’s safe for play, plastic grass is often seen as a quick and easy solution for homeowners who are tired of muddy patches, mess and mowing. It doesn’t go brown in summer or get overgrown when you’re away. Nor does it require weeding, seeding, scarifying or watering. All very tempting, but before you sign up for an artificial lawn to replace your existing turf, can I just ask you to consider what you’re actually installing in your garden before making any decisions.

What is artificial grass?

Artificial grass is basically a synthetic woven product, including a top layer of nylon, polypropylene, or polyethelene fibres and an infill rubber layer.  It’s energy intensive to make in the first place, and the amount of materials required to make a typical lawn requires a huge amount of plastic, equivalent to hundreds of thousands of plastic straws, which has a huge reliance on fossil fuels and a massive carbon footprint. A natural lawn is a carbon sink, so in installing astro turf and removing the existing lawn, effectively you’d be reversing the positive impact of the area you’re covering to negatively impact the environment and accelerating climate change.

It doesn’t last forever

Once installed, an artifical lawn typically lasts 7-15 years. Most synthetic turf cannot be recycled and simply ends up in landfill.

The heating effect

Astro turf heats up much quicker than natural grass, and during a hot summer can become too hot to walk on barefoot, to the point where it can be very damaging to your pet’s paws. If you have a dog, their urine can puddle underneath the matting, causing a stink, worsening as it heats up in the sun.

The synthetic surface of artificial grass absorbs heat instead of cooling itself as a natural lawn does. The impact of adding artificial turf to your outside space can also add to the overall heat-island effect of cities, which are getting hotter and hotter, contributing to an increase in land temperatures, which during heatwaves, could be dangerous for public health.

The risk of flooding

Artificial lawns, unlike natural lawns, can add to the risk of flooding, which won’t do your insurance premiums any good and would cause utter heartache if they came to pass. A natural lawn absorbs almost every drop of rain that falls, helping to slow the flow of water into drains. Artificial grass absorbs less than 50% of rainfall, with the compacted and lifeless ground beneath less able to absorb rainwater, causing increased run-off and, in turn, flooding.

The effects on nature

Soil is a living thing, full of tiny creatures, bacteria and funghi that are all interconnected, making up a tiny ecosystem in healthy soil. Plastic lawns are a no-go zone for wildlife. It takes 2000 years to form 100mm of topsoil. In order to install plastic grass your topsoil is removed. Putting a layer of plastic on what’s left will suffocate it. Earthworms, natural organisms and fungi that thrive in the soil will be killed, plants will be eliminated and all sources of food and habitat for insects, birds and animals will be destroyed. Studies indicate that insect populations have plummeted by up to 80 per cent in the UK over the past two decades, and a total collapse of insect life would be devastating on the food chain. Insects rely on the wildflowers, daisies, buttercups and dandelions in real grass, for mating and pollination – none of which is possible with artificial grass. Do you really want to be responsible for creating an uninhabitable desert on your patch of the earth?

Pollution of the waterways and effects on human health

Not to put too fine a point on it, artifical turf contains microplastics which get washed out and down drains into waterways when it rains heavily. These micro particles are then consumed by waterborne creatures, poisoning them and ending up in the food chain. Additionally to the plastic particles themselves, the turf can emit dangerous chemicals like toxic lead, Benzene, arsenic, styrene PFAs and phthalates, all known to be carcinogenic. These chemicals are absorbed by human skin and washed into wildlife habitats.

Artifical grass, whilst often seen as a child-friendly and safe surface for play, could be contributing to poor longterm health for children who come into regular contact with it. The microbeads of crumb rubber which is often made from recycled tyres to fill in the gaps between the blades of synthetic turf. These can be easily picked up on the child’s hands as they play, and easily transferred to their mouths. Young children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of these toxic chemicals, which can affect their growing bodies signficantly and risk causing cancer and respiratory problems. Is this worth the risk for a no-mow lawn?

If you want a lawn, make it a real lawn

Not all gardens need lawns. I’ve designed plenty of beautiful and functional outdoor spaces that don’t contain grassy surfaces. But if you do want a lawn, often seen as the key element of a quintessential British Garden, then please choose carefully, and if at all possible, opt for a natural lawn.

Remember, even if your turf goes brown in a heatwave it will come back. Grass is the single most successful plant on the planet and is extremely resilient, so don’t bother watering your lawn with sprinklers. I’ve designed functional irrigation systems for gardens for years, and can safely say there is no need for any lawn irrigation at all – it’s a waste of money and water.

According to some statistics, around 10% of UK gardens already have some form of artificial turf installed, with an additional 29% considering installing it. I hope I can play my part, as a responsible professional designer, in advocating for a more natural, sustainable and beautiful solution for British Gardens.

Sam

Sam Proctor MSGLD, MAPL

Professional Garden Designer, principal at Chiltern Garden Design.