A Non-Growing Trend: Artificial Lawns
Appeared in San Jose Mercury News,
MercuryNews.com October 29, 2005
Weeds, pollen, bugs, headaches, earaches, skin rashes and — just when the turf appeared safe— camouflaged doggie poop.
Jennifer Homan couldn't take it anymore: The lawn had to go.
"With two young kids, and two dogs, and a very busy husband, I just couldn't keep up with the grass anymore," the stay-at-home mom said at her home in suburban South San Jose. "We had to replace it."
But with what?
Concrete was out of the question. So were hard, grassy looking carpets like the defunct AstroTurf. With native plants covering much of their terraced yard, the kids and dogs needed to romp on something flat and safe.
Somewhere she had heard about a new generation of synthetic grasses that looked like the perfect lawn. She and her husband, Steve, were sold at first sight. They've joined over 1,000 other homeowners willing to pay up to $15 a square foot— $22,500 for the average-size 1,500-square-foot lawn in the county.
That's way more than the few thousand dollars it might cost for regular turf and sprinklers. But with their new bouncy lawn, the Homans will never mow, fertilize or water again.
On a recent sunny autumn day, she placed her infant son, Matthew, and toddler daughter, Charlotte, on a once-weedy side yard, now green with artificial grass.
"They can't tell the difference from real grass," Homan said about her children. "I don't have to worry about dirt, fertilizers, pesticides and other stuff they could be getting on their skin."
Even the pooches seemed OK with it. Cutter doesn't get earaches from grass moisture anymore. Cookie used to dig big holes in the old lawn, but now she just paws at the impenetrable new turf and gives up. As for cleaning up? Dog droppings lift right off the synthetic blades, and their urine washes rapidly down the turf's deeper layers.
"I just love this stuff," Homan said.
And it works for Bonnie and Ron Swenson of Almaden Valley. They had a small lawn and putting green installed in a backyard spot too shady for real grass. Has anyone made snide, purist remarks about the fake turf?
"None," Bonnie said. "When they see it from up there, they think it's real. And when they touch it, they're surprised."
Not everyone is sold on the plastic grass. Bill Thompson, editor of Architecture Landscape magazine, said the new stuff may work in arid regions but, "It's a mixed bag because it seals off the soil."
Without a steady supply of water or sunlight, you can't have worms, insects and moisture underneath -- living systems that hold soil firm, prevent flooding and nourish birds, bees and other animals and plants. Some researchers believe artificial turf belongs only in indoor stadiums already separated from the soil system.
Brian Hagen sold a meat-packing plant in his native, water-rich Minnesota to sell artificial grass in arid Silicon Valley.
"We saw the model," he said, "and we saw the future."
He pointed to a box with a side view of FieldTurf at his San Jose company, Heavenly Greens. He and his partner, Dan Tice, cover the Northern California residential market. A Santa Rosa company covers the athletic-field market.
The top layer is a compilation of polypropylene blades sewn onto a porous, textile cloth. The 'soil' is a mixture of graded silicone sand and crushed rubber that holds up the blades and provides bounce. The next layers underneath are small stone, larger graded stone, and finally under it all the natural soil.
Hagen said his company has installed about a million square feet of the turf at 1,000 homes and dozens of schools, churches and golf courses, and used rubber from 4 million old tires.
The perfect lawns appear to be natural fits for water-short Silicon Valley and California.
"Lawns don't have much place being here in our arid environment," said Jerry de la Piedra, senior water conservation specialist for the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
He said the average size of residential turf in the county is about 1,500 square feet and requires about 56,000 gallons of water every year to stay alive.
People who have taken to the turf love it for many reasons, first for no maintenance, followed by pet-friendliness. And then they appreciate that it's safe for children and adults at play. Which keys into the widest use of the new generation of synthetic grass -- athletics.
About 110 fields have been installed in the Bay Area.
One of the newest sits at Presentation High, a San Jose Catholic school for girls.
"I'll take this any day,'' said Bridget Moran. The sprightly junior and her teammates on the varsity field hockey team shot and passed the hard balls with ease, because they almost always rolled true— though a little slower— on the consistently smooth and stressless surface.
By this time last year, the Presentation teams had suffered 14 sprained ankles. This year on their new turf: zero sprains.
Another field hockey player, Melanie Chase, said, "On the other stuff you got a nasty carpet burn and scabs. But on this, it just kind of hurts a little when you fall."
The other pain? The price. Presentation paid $750,000 for its new field. And a typical home installation costs about $8 — $15 per square foot.
"We could not have done it without a fundraising drive and big donors," said Presentation Principal Mary Miller. "Of course, it's still a risk. We save on maintenance now, but we'll see what the field is like in 10 years."
