Overheard a neighbor bragging about his new turf lawn saving 50k gallons of water a year

I did the math on my natural grass and with our monsoon patterns and metered rates, his $8,000 turf job would take 14 years to break even, so is anyone else sticking with real grass despite the HOA pressure?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_richard1mo agoMost Upvoted

Yeah I'm keeping my real grass too. The HOA sent me a nasty letter about my brown lawn last August but I just told them it's dormant, not dead. There's something nice about watching the hummingbirds go after the clover flowers in my yard that you just don't get with plastic grass. Plus my dogs would probably try to dig through the turf and that would be a nightmare to fix.

patel.daniel21d ago

Yeah the "dormant not dead" argument is a good one, I've used that myself. It's funny how people see a brown lawn and assume it's dying when it's just doing what grass does in the summer. @the_richard mentioned the clover flowers and hummingbirds, and that's something I've noticed too - when you let the clover grow a bit, it brings in all these little bees and butterflies that you just don't get with a perfect green monoculture. I've got patches of clover and even some dandelions in my yard, and honestly the wildlife activity makes it more interesting than a boring flat green surface. Plus with artificial turf you miss out on that whole ecosystem living in the soil, all the worms and bugs that birds depend on.

the_thomas1mo ago

Good grief. So he spent eight grand to save fifty bucks a year on his water bill? That sounds like the kind of math they teach you at the fancy private school where they don't have math class. I guess if you really hate mowing and you want your yard to look like a putting green from space, it might be worth it. But I'll stick with my patchy Bermuda grass and the weird satisfaction of watching it turn brown every July.