Turf Wars

A couple weeks ago I was trolling my neighborhood with a big fancy camera in search of the right shot for an ad campaign* I am working on. I spent some time shooting by a park full of children right around the time everyone was returning home from work, so I got a lot strange looks from concerned parents. And I had to do this several times. Next time I won't do this in my neighborhood, they probably thought I was a pedophile.

I took this shot:

Notice anything different?Here's a close up:

Fake!

I've been really interested in artificial grass but have never seen it in person. It looks darker than other grass (mostly because the grass is dried out and burned). And of course I took off my flip flops to touch it with my bare skin. It was not cold like grass is. But texture-wise felt very similar.

Why the fake stuff?

1. grass always looks nice
2. water conservation
3. no mowing (therefore no gas/fumes)
4. durability

I've been curious about the stuff because I'm interested in putting it on our back incline.

Mowing up there will be nearly impossible, the sprinkler system up there is never run because it mostly waters the fence, and we have several mature trees that drop leaves quite often. Therefore raking is made difficult. My current solution is to have nothing but dirt and weeds. But eventually I would like to have something nice looking while easy to maintain. The only downfall is the price. It's more than sod. And it's more than leaving it as is. But I was happy to finally see it in person.

What do y'all think about synthetic grass? Just leave it to soccer fields and football fields? The drought fairy should sprinkle it all around residential lawns? Love it but hate the costs?

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(*The final ad)