Once upon a time, we had lush, green, soft natural grass in our backyard. Sometimes. However, in the winter if we didn’t overseed the grass and it went dormant it became brown, crispy, and ugly. Maintaining the grass to keep it looking beautiful involved reluctant mowing, the occasional edging, lawnmower maintenance, yearly overseeding, and a whole lot of water. Eventually we got tired of wasting water & taking care of the grass, and we simply shut off the water to it. Talk about brown, crispy, and ugly! Winter rolled around and the grass went dormant, then gradually deteriorated further, finally leaving our backyard in shambles. However, there was suddenly a clear difference in our water bill when we shut off the water. While reducing our bills was a welcome byproduct, the primary reason for shutting off our water was simple water conservation.
In Tucson, about 40% of the potable water is used on landscapes (Tucson Country Club Estates is the largest water user in the area according to data from Tucson Water). There are many ways to avoid this, including by using only native plants and harvesting rainwater. Rainwater harvesting can be accomplished in multiple ways, like passively via berms & swales and actively via gutters & cisterns. You might be surprised to learn that enough water falls from the sky every year to cover our entire water needs in Tucson IF those needs don’t include things like grass.
Through education, a reduction in landscape watering, and other proactive means the water usage in Tucson has shrunk from an average gallons per capita per day of 121 GPCD in 1996 down to 94 GPCD in 2010. This is slightly above the US average in 2010 of 88 GPCD, but well below Arizona’s hefty 147 GPCD. This enormous Arizona figure is largely thanks to all of those lawns in the Phoenix area. By 2015, Tucson had further reduced its GPCD down to 80 GPCD! Through our own reduction in watering natural grass and other lifestyle changes, we’re averaging around 40 GPCD for our household!
https://mapazdashboard.arizona.edu/infrastructure/residential-water-use:
So though we had decided to stop fighting the uphill battle that was our lawn, we still wanted to brighten up our backyard last summer and make it an inviting place to spend time. Ultimately we decided to replace part of our lawn area with artificial grass. We would have replaced the entire thing, but yes, artificial turf IS fairly expensive. Therefore, we replaced half of the old grass area with artificial grass and laid decorative rock in place of the other half.
Artificial grass was first used in the Houston Astrodome in 1966, and boy has it come a long way! You can find all kinds of varieties of grass, each mimicking a different type of real grass. In fact, there are so many options out there, that it made choosing very difficult. Home Depot only had four different varieties that we could touch for ourselves, and the other suppliers were located so far away, that it was going to be a hassle to visit them all. It would have been nice to have one large showroom with all of the different types available to do a side-by-side comparison, but alas, each company only carries particular varieties, so you’re probably better off choosing your installation company first and then comparing their selections.
We chose to work with Arizona Turf Masters and called up their estimator, Jeri Estrella. Jeri was very responsive and came out to our house to see the backyard and take measurements of the area we wanted replaced. She was knowledgeable, friendly, and not a pushy salesperson at all. Arizona Turf Masters is one arm of the company that does the installations, but for those DIY’ers you can purchase the turf through their affiliated company, The Synthetic Grass Store. We did hem and haw about doing this project on our own for the experience and to save some money but ultimately decided to let the professionals handle the install. That proved to be a wise decision as the professionals were in and out in just a single day with a very neatly done job.
So whether your motives are a long term financial savings on water bills or just to ease the burden of maintenance, switching to artificial grass could be the answer if you’re a natural grass owner. Even those with xeriscaped backyards may want to consider a little artificial grass to brighten up their yards too!
Below are some before & after photos of our backyard:
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