Grass always greener on synthetic lawn.
Homeowners tired of mowing the lawn are thrilled with bright green turf that never needs to be watered
Every spring when the snow is melting, Nicole Sharp puts out a sign on her front lawn, encouraging people to “Feel my grass!”
“It saves people from knocking on our door,” said Sharp, who estimates that between five and 10 people stop every spring day to marvel at her bright green grass compared to the neighbours’ brown and grey lawns. Many knock with questions. “When the spring comes, it is ridiculous how many people stop and look at it.”
After all, the grass is fake. It’s plastic. It’s perpetually bright green, even below the snow, yet never needs to be mowed or watered.
Sharp got her synthetic turf three years ago and is part of a growing wave of people in the Edmonton area choosing perfect plastic over growing grass. When Gary Selanders began his Evergreen Turf business in Edmonton eight years ago, he was busy installing the plastic product at about 15 houses during the summer.
In 2013, he laid down the fake blades at 130 houses. This summer, Selanders and his team of 13 workers expect to install synthetic turf at more than 200 homes and simply can’t keep up with demand.
“This has really boomed,” said Selanders, whose company is the only Alberta dealer for U.S. grass-maker Southwest Greens. “It’s the only way to go. It’s a nobrainer for people to put it in.”
No more grass stains on her two sons’ clothing, Sharp said. No more snow mould or dandelions that set off the seven-year-old’s allergies. No more aerating, fertilizing or watering. The Sharps got rid of their gas lawn mower — the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one such lawn mower emits the same amount of air pollution as 11 new cars in one hour — and replaced it with a lawn vacuum.
Yes, Sharp vacuums her lawn. She also uses a soft rake to brush away dust and dirt. Otherwise, the maintenance is low, she said, and far lower than when the family had dogs whose urine and digging killed the real grass.
Barry Morgan, facility manager at the Edmonton Humane Society, said he’s lobbying for cash to replace even more grassed areas with artificial turf. Currently, the dog daycare pen and exercise areas on the north side of the building are landscaped with dog-specific turf. They look brand new even after five years of constant pawing, dog tussles and bathroom breaks, Morgan said.
“I’m actually surprised at how well it’s lasted,” he said, especially since he knows it’s impossible for staff to always hose down or pour a bucket of water onto urine spots every time, as procedure dictates. The urine can cause rot, but Morgan said there is no evidence of that so far. The natural fields, on the other hand?
“I can’t get the grass to live,” he said.
Joyce Schewaga had no luck with grass either on her Ottewell-area lawn that slopes toward the sidewalk. Schewaga has lived in her bungalow at 6908 90th Ave. for more than 40 years and tried to keep her front lawn alive with water that would just drain off. She tried to build up the slope, but nothing worked.
“We tried everything. It was just ugly, ugly,” said Schewaga, 71. Then her husband died, so she had plastic turf installed seven years ago and would never go back, despite the $9,000 price tag.
The cost can be four times more expensive than living sod, depending on the quality and type of synthetic turf, Selanders said. The most popular Evergreen blend (in “spring green” with a two-inch pile and a brown and green thatch) is $8-$10 per square foot, plus another $1-$5 per square foot to prepare the area by taking out the grass and creating layers of soil and gravel.
Putting greens cost $15 per square foot.
“They think, ‘I don’t have time to grow a nice lawn in Alberta. I don’t want to spend all my time as a slave in my yard.’”
Gary Selanders
But Selanders said it takes an average of only eight years for homeowners to recuperate the costs. He wishes more people would include the upfront cost in their mortgage application.
“They think, ‘I don’t have time to grow a nice lawn in Alberta. I don’t want to spend all my time as a slave in my yard,’ and that’s why it’s taken off,” Selanders said.
“That saves a lot of labour,” Sharp said, noting she still spends about 15 minutes mowing the vintage back yard. Someone once played a Halloween prank on her, pealing the front lawn back and folding it over once like a blanket. Schewaga just nailed it back on.
Schewaga’s daughter isn’t likely the only one to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Schewaga used to hand out business cards of the lawn installer. When she ran out, she cut little slips of paper and hand-wrote the business name and phone number on them, keeping them by the front door for easy distribution.
From their front room in the Holyrood neighbourhood, Peter and Jill Stetsko often see people kneeling on their fake front lawn, touching the perfect green fibres. The young couple did have qualms about putting in an artificial rather than natural product, but have diversified their landscaping with real shrubs and flowers, mulch, wood chips and paving stones.
They sold their lawn mower on Kijiji, so Jill’s father now comes over to mow the narrow boulevard where the grass still grows long.
Big bonus for Peter? An artificial putting green in the backyard for the golfer to practise in between cuddles and burp time with his newborn daughter, Kayla.
Michael Kalmanovitch, owner of Earth’s General Store, sees the benefits of syn-lawns: lush green lawns that don’t require powerful mowers or one-upmanship between neighbours to outgreen the community with fertilizers, sprinkling and grooming.
Such low-maintenance yards are also great for an aging population unable to handle the physical work. But Kalmanovitch equated the trend to a similar move from wood to vinyl siding: both fake options are durable and take little to keep clean, but there are consequences to both.
“We’re smothering the Earth,” Kalmanovitch said. “We’re already doing that with a lot of pavement, concrete, buildings and we’re not allowing plants, we’re not allowing this Earth, to breathe as it should do.”
He said manicured grass is also a problem as the largest monoculture in North America, covering up more space than any other crop. He encourages xeriscaping and growing plants native to the area that can resist drought. Kalmanovitch also likes the idea of people turning their lawns into productive vegetable gardens.
“We already live in a very built-up, built, synthetic environment and now we are even going a step further,” he said. “It makes us naturedeprived.”
But Selanders has an answer. “We’re not covering the whole world. We’re just doing a few yards in Edmonton.”