Owning pets and having a lawn to be proud of creates a conflict of interest, especially in the UK, with often prolonged periods of wet weather turning lawns into quagmires when pets romp, roll and revel in the mud bath they have obligingly created.
Then the inevitable happens, and your beloved pet becomes the house monster, treading and dripping the mess onto your floors and rubbing themselves on furniture. The garden subsequently becomes a no-go area for the rest of the family, and your furry friend feels aggrieved at being scolded for having the time of its life outside.
There is a solution to all of this chaos: artificial grass. No longer the preserve of hockey pitches and the like, artificial turf is becoming the choice for those who want that manicured lawn look all year round with the minimum of upkeep. Dogs in particular love to dig and scratch on grass, but providing the artificial turf is laid correctly and is of a quality grade there should be no problems with our digger friends.
There is no difficulty poop-scooping either. On natural lawns, dog lovers will know the problems of faeces removal from long grass when the elements and time have conspired to prevent regular mowing taking place. Artificial turf is always the same height, allowing mess to be picked up easily, and for those bits too small or sloppy to remove, all that is needed is either a hosing down or for rain to flush particles through the permeable membrane.
Similarly, urine simply drains away, just as it would on a natural lawn. Brown and yellowing stains on grass left by female pets’ urine do not happen on artificial lawns. In spells of prolonged dry weather any accumulation of smells from excrement can be removed by hosing, or an application of soapy water with disinfectant brushed into the artificial grass will leave it fresh and clean.
Pets treat artificial grass the same as natural grass, so you can have a lawn to be proud of without the upkeep a natural lawn demands.
Here are some pointers before you start to place your order. Firstly you need to consider the area you are covering, to ensure you are ordering the right about of grass.
If you have a square or rectangular lawn, measuring the area is fairly easy, as you can measure two sides to obtain the square metres.
It's slightly harder if you have more of an irregular shaped lawn. Try drawing the shape of your site to scale on a grid, as shown on the image across -
When you have your measurements, you can now work out how much grass you need. Bear in mind that you can choose from 2-metre or 4-metre width rolls, as you want to aim to have as less joins as possible.
