The cost of installing artificial grass can feel like a monumental investment. To get an idea of how much an artificial lawn will cost you, check out our previous article, “How much does artificial grass cost in London in 2021.”
But like all garden maintenance solutions, you need to look further into the future to gauge whether or not an artificial lawn is a worthwhile investment. To do that, you have to consider how much an artificial grass lawn will cost you during the course of its lifetime compared with a natural lawn.
The short answer is that artificial grass will save you more money in the long term on grounds that they are much easier and less costly to maintain.
This article lists seven key factors that make artificial grass installation less expensive than natural lawns.
1. No more maintenance
Maintaining a natural lawn is expensive and time-consuming. Natural grass must be regularly watered, fed and treated with herbicides to manage weed growth and keep pests kept away from it.
Alternatively, maintaining an artificial lawn is a quick and easy process that largely revolves around keeping it tidy. To avoid things decaying on it, artificial lawn maintenance is all about removing organic matter as quickly as possible.
It sounds complicated, but all this really involves is brushing off leaves and twigs before they begin to decompose. You may occasionally get stains on your artificial grass, but the majority of them can be removed with soapy water.
For more information about removing stains from artificial grass, check out this article.
2. Artificial Grass Does Not Need Trimming
By its very nature, natural grass is a living and growing thing. It is deeply unpredictable, growing very rapidly under specific unforeseeable conditions.
A natural lawn can go from neat and trimmed to wild and overgrown in a matter of weeks. You have probably experienced long summers of constantly mowing your lawn, and if you’re no longer able to mow your own lawn, the costs will be astronomical.
Getagardener.co.uk estimates lawn mowing services range from £10-40 per hour. Meanwhile, people with an artificial lawn can rest assured that their grass will always be at the perfect height with absolutely zero trimmings required.
3. No more pesticides
A surprisingly large amount of wildlife will relish the opportunity to feast on a natural grass lawn. Many pets such as slugs will simply eat some grass as they are passing through, and this does not pose that much of a problem.
A single slug or snail will not be able to eat that much of your lawn. But if an ant colony finds their way onto the grass, it can quickly demolish it.
The only way to prevent insects from ravishing your lawn is with abundant use of pesticides. Not only are pesticides expensive, but they are also damaging to the environment and potentially to your health. Monsanto’s Roundup, for example, has been linked to cancer.
On the other hand, some studies claim pesticides are not harmful to most animals but are a vastly increased risk for bees that pollinate your garden. Having a natural lawn means choosing between risking the health of your lawn, or risking the health of your plants.
Having an artificial lawn means you will not have to wrestle with the difficult decision of spraying pesticides - which could potentially harm yourself and your family or destroy the fragile ecosystem that lives in your garden.
4. Fake Grass Does Not Need Fertilisers
A natural lawn will need to be well looked after to make sure it’s always looking its best. Nothing is more unaesthetic than a dying lawn. The way that most people look after the health of their lawn is by using lawn fertilisers.
Lawn fertilisers generally consist of the base ingredients of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, often supplemented by other key nutrients.
With lawn fertilisers, you get what you pay for with cheaper fertilisers being too high in nitrogen for grass to be healthy. By the time you have completed the multiple treatments lawns you need each year, the costs can run very high.
This is not something that artificial lawn owners need to worry about. Artificial lawn is not a living thing so there is no need to worry about it dying. Your artificial lawn will always look its best and will not wilt under any weather conditions.
5. No Need for Weed Killer
You also don’t need to worry as much about weeds growing up through your artificial grass. People with natural lawns have to deal with unsightly weeds much more often, either spraying their grass with weed killer or painstakingly pulling out weeds.
Meanwhile, people with artificial lawns have a much easier time. Although rare weed-killing sessions will be needed, the bulk of your action against weeds will be done during the installation period.
By properly installing a high-quality weed-stopping membrane beneath your artificial grass, you might never have to deal with weeds again.
6. Cut Out Professional Gardener Costs
At the end of the day, professional gardening is very expensive. Lawn care is very hard to do, and professional solutions in the gardening industry are expensive.
Checkatrade.com have made detailed estimations of the cost of all of the lawn care you would need for a natural lawn.
They will not make easy reading if you’ve just installed a natural lawn without checking the maintenance costs. Experts estimate the monthly care costs of natural grass is £11-17, a yearly service cost of £100, seasonal treatments are £67.50, and regular fertilisations are £25 each.
As we mentioned earlier, maintaining an artificial lawn is easy and mostly consists of simple cleaning jobs you can do yourself. You don’t have to pay professionals to maintain the grass for you - which over the course of its lifetime will save you thousands of pounds.
The only time you need to get professional artificial grass installers involved is when you first install it.
7. Lower Water bills for Watering Lawn
The summer months are stressful for natural lawn owners. Limited rainfall means that their grass is at constant risk of wilting. They need to water a new lawn every few days, and a mature lawn at least once a week.
This requires a huge amount of water which inevitably will be reflected in an enormous water bill. Their worries are only amplified further by the fact that drought could lead to a hosepipe ban, and their lawn will suffer.
Meanwhile, artificial grass owners can relax in the summer knowing that they will never have to water their artificial lawn other than a light sprinkle to wash off the dust.
For more information about the cost benefits of installing an artificial lawn, contact us today and speak with one of our experts.
