Artificial Grass and dogs

CL32

Hi,

Does anyone have any experience of artificial grass and pet dogs? (Also posting in gardening forum)

It turns out a waterlogged lawn and a playfull bull terrier don't make good bedfellows. We need to do a job on our back garden soon to try and keep it (and our house!) clean.

I started researching artificial grass and am now seriously considering it instead of paving every inch of the garden. Most suppliers seem to supply 'dog friendly' grades for dog runs and kennels etc. The claims they make are brilliant, but then again, they would be. I was hoping someone here has some experience - or knows someone who does?

A search didn't throw up any hits in this (or the gardening) forum.

fred funk }{

I'm thinking of doing something similar. I'll keep my eye on this thread

CL32

fred funk }{ wrote: »

I'm thinking of doing something similar. I'll keep my eye on this thread

Good stuff. I've posted on a Staffy forum I'm a member of too and I'll send you the link if it gets any decent replies. I'm going to visit a few of the suppliers next weekend too so I'll let you know how I get on.

fred funk }{

CL32 wrote: »

Good stuff. I've posted on a Staffy forum I'm a member of too and I'll send you the link if it gets any decent replies. I'm going to visit a few of the suppliers next weekend too so I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks a mill

Aden

I suggest artificial grasses are kids and pets friendly which doesn't harm them while they play or walk. My friend, who has got artificial grass in his home, says that his kid and pets more often loves to stay on the grass.

The Sweeper

A good friend of mine in Wicklow has a suburban-sized garden (deck, shed, bit of space to run about) and one lurcher and one collie/spaniel cross. She had nothing but mud everywhere until she got artificial grass put in.

She reckons it's fantastic. The one she got installed is 'dog-proof' - she set a challenge to the blokes to give her a product her collie/spaniel wouldn't tear up and shred and as far as I know, a couple of years in, it remains undamaged and she swears by it. I'll find out more about it and post with the info later.

CrowdedHouse

We have it,had a similar problem to the OP-waterlogged and fairly shaded back garden.
It has worked very well, no more muddy paws in the house
Easier to clean up after the dogs too.

Drawbacks : 1-Quite expensive. 2- We have a lot of plants/flowers around the lawn so it has to be gone over with a garden blower/vac fairly regularly to keep it looking good.

We used Sanctuary Synthetics in Naas
http://www.sanctuarysynthetics.ie/

Heres a pic of ours

The Sweeper

Those are the same guys my friend used - she got the most hard wearing one they had and reckons it has been well, well worth it.

CL32

Ha what a co-inky-dink. I just got my lawn laid yesterday - I almost forgot about this thread!

Was going to go with Sanctuary but got samples of another one that is almost like carpet, and I think will resist staffy play time. Hope I don't regret getting the Sanctuary stuff. Even if I got five or six years out of it I wouldn't mind replacing it again as unfortunately my garden is on the small size.

Haven't got around to getting pics yet so I'll post some up tomorrow.

Sigma Force

How easy is it to clean up dog poo in it does it not get stuck in it, also how does drainage work with the artificial grass?

orchard cj

Anybody get artificial grass where a lot of dogs would be using?

micheleabc

orchard cj wrote: »

Anybody get artificial grass where a lot of dogs would be using?

I run im my own house a little business of dog boarding and day care, I also own three dogs myself. Until last year at one stage it wasn't possible anymore to distinguish the inside of the house from outside because the dirty and mud were overwelming. Since about one year we replaced the grass with artificial turf and as by miracle the mud dissapered. Sometime I have as many as five dogs running and playing from outside to the inside of the house and not only mud is now a long forgotten memory, but the artificial turf is taking an amazing amount of punishment by the dogs and at this day it didn't loose a strow; it only got squashed a bit.
I did install the artificial turf by myself togheter with mt partner; in that way we saved quite a bit of money.
The only problem is that if the garden originally suffers of waterlog problems, I would suggest to create before a good drainage system.
Here is were I bought the artificial turf (remember that you can ask for some free sample): http://www.evergreensuk.com
Here is my back yard before and after:

orchard cj

The photos..... thats it exactly....... God I thought I was looking at my own back garden for a minute. One more question if I may...

Did the grass smell from them going to the toilet and did you power hose it or what.

Many thanks

orchard cj

Would love to know where you got the artificial grass from. Stuck in the same boat now myself. Please would love to know as i must do something fast.

Thanks

CL32

Sanctuary synthetics are based in Kildare and have pet friendly grass on their website you could check out.

A friend of mine ordered my grass for me from a company up north, I'll have the details for you tomorrow. I got grass that keen golfers use to make fake greens from. Its a shorter pile because I was afraid our dog would start pulling the threads of some of the longer grasses (she was practicing on our stairs carpet at the time)

Our drainage was so poor that our garden turned into a mudpit. To prepare for the artificial grass, the lads dug down a few inches and compacted two tonnes of hard core with a further two tonnes of sand on top of that - then rolled out the grass. That base is where the pee and rain etc soak into and trust me there is no smell - even in the height of summer. If anything, there was more of a smell of pee soaked mud before we got it done.

The grass is incredibly easy to keep clean. Just pick up poo as you would normally. Pee soaks straight through. During the bout of sun we got last year I was concerned cos I was able see dark patches where she had been peeing but they disappeared with the first rain. (A bucket of water would have done the job too)

They say to keep leaves and organic stuff off it to prevent moss etc growing but thats easy with a yard brush.

If you're in Dublin you're more than welcome to come up and check it out for yourself.

micheleabc

orchard cj wrote: »

The photos..... thats it exactly....... God I thought I was looking at my own back garden for a minute. One more question if I may...

Did the grass smell from them going to the toilet and did you power hose it or what.

Many thanks

As CL32 says it is important to have a decent drainage system;the artificial grass is usually perforeted so washing with power hose it is not a problem at all.
Sometime, in the very worst days it's possible to pick up a slight smell, but never anything comparable with what the yard used to be in the past. Now in the good weather I can finally play with my dogs rolling with them on the artificial grass.

jackreacher

apologies for thread hijacking,
have 3 dogs at present and am seriously looking at this as an option. what would a ballpark figure be for a garden not that much bigger than micheleabcs garden?

micheleabc

jackreacher wrote: »

apologies for thread hijacking,
have 3 dogs at present and am seriously looking at this as an option. what would a ballpark figure be for a garden not that much bigger than micheleabcs garden?

The roll of grass I bought was 4 metre in width and 7 metre in lenght, I got it over from UK and including the shipping the coast was around € 1100. I did install it by myself, I believe that with a company installation the cost would more or less double. Here is where I got mine: http://www.evergreensuk.com

jackreacher

many thanks for that

micheleabc

orchard cj wrote: »

The photos..... thats it exactly....... God I thought I was looking at my own back garden for a minute. One more question if I may...

Did the grass smell from them going to the toilet and did you power hose it or what.

Many thanks

The base of the turf has a lot of drainage holes so the pee just goes through it, the number 2's are collected or hosed-off it needs be. The turf itself doesn't retain any smells but our soil underneath is is very clayish and during some very very wet weeks you can catch a bit of pee smell but then again there is a lot of dogs going through our house.

fioc

I have artificial grass and both my cat and dog love it! It retains heat so the cat loves it for a leisurely lounge!! My only problem (after all the rain recently ) has been some breakthorugh moss...anyone any ideas how best to get rid of this? Am scared to use moss killer in case it melts the grass..:cool: