This week we’ve had posts about spring dresses, spring fashion for kids, outdoor furniture, and today I’m talking lawns. Can you tell we are desperate for some sun here at Rock My Towers?

I feel like a bit of a sham referring to the grass in our garden as a ‘lawn’. ‘Lawn’ conjures an image of a huge, velvety and immaculate stretch of green, perhaps with stripes. When in fact our garden is modest in size and muddy. And has most certainly never had stripes. It is so muddy that it’s a no-go zone unless wearing wellies. I blame the fact that it’s a new build: I’ve heard all sorts of horror stories about builders chucking bricks, rubble and other debris under the turf in new build gardens, and I’m certain this was the case with ours.

There’s one section of the garden which gets virtually no sunlight and seems to be constantly waterlogged. The grass in that area has turned into a squelchy, soggy and unsightly patch of mud. Every year I spend ages (ok so I spend one afternoon maybe) piercing the lawn surface with a garden fork, trying to drain some of the water away, to no avail. So we are weighing up the possibility of installing artificial grass.

Artificial Grass: The Pros

1. Artificial grass would be much easier to maintain than real grass, because, NO MOWING. (I’m now a champion mower – gone are the days when I forget to attach the grass catcher bag, leaving clumps of freshly cut grass behind me. True story. However it’s one of those jobs that is never as important as the others and inevitably gets overlooked).

2. Even better, artificial grass would mean NO STRIMMING. Last year we had raised railway sleeper beds installed around the edge of the garden, and the trees and shrubs in the sleepers have brought a bit of character and texture and colour to the space. However, the edge of the lawn needs to be regularly strimmed to keep that edge between the grass and the sleepers looking smart. And I’m no champion strimmer. The plastic wire bit always breaks on me.

3. I like the crisp and clean aesthetic of artificial grass – those neat edges! The ‘look’ also fits nicely with the era of a modern house.

4. I think it works well in small gardens, and apparently it is also ideal if you have a sloping garden which can be tricky to mow.

5. It’s soft and safe underfoot for the kiddos. Goodbye, awful prickly weeds that I can never get under the root of!

6. No muddy lawn means no muddy house.

Artificial Grass: The Cons

1. My friend Perfect Nat has recently had artificial grass installed in her garden and she raves about it, but says its one downfall is that it can get really hot in the summer. So keeping a section of patio or real grass would be a must.

2. There is a whole range of shades, lengths and densities of artificial grass, which sounds like it should be a ‘pro’, but not when you’re as indecisive as I am. There are 22 choices on the B&Q website alone, and they all look preeeeetty similar if you ask me.

3. I’ve costed it up and to astro-turf our garden we are looking at a price of £2,750, if we were to go with the B&Q options. Which is a hefty initial outlay.

4. It’s never going to look (or feel) as lush, luscious and natural as real grass. But anything’s a damn sight better than the mud bath we’ve got going on at the moment.

{Edit} Given the feedback below I also want to highlight the environmental impact. In my research (and perhaps it’s clever marketing by the companies making these products) it was suggested there was a positive impact to the environment considering these products are often made of recyclable materials. I (perhaps naively) didn’t think about the fact that it doesn’t biodegrade. Thank you for highlighting the other factors that should be carefully considered.

Do you have artificial grass, or would you ever consider it? If you do have it, would you recommend?