#artificial turf

[noiteazul]

Example of a huge tuscan white two-story stucco exterior home design with a tile roof

Aces General Music Choirs

[finntography]

[jefkphotography]

Soccer, football field photo.

[reasonsforhope]

Despite its reputation for excess, Las Vegas has become a leader in water conservation amid ongoing Colorado River water negotiations.

Pictured: Visitors, shown as black silhouettes, take in the free water show at the Bellagio resort on the Las Vegas Strip.

Fountains still shimmer opulently at casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, but lush carpets of grass are gradually disappearing along the streets of Sin City.

Despite its reputation for excess, the Mojave Desert metropolis has been factoring climate change into its water plans for years, declaring war on thirsty lawns, patrolling the streets for water wasters and preparing for worst-case scenarios on the Colorado River, which supplies 90% of the area’s water.

Las Vegas has emerged as a leader in water conservation, and some of its initiatives have spread to other cities and states that rely on the shrinking river. Its drive to get rid of grass in particular could reshape the look of landscapes in public and private spaces throughout the Southwest.

So how did Las Vegas become a water-saving model to emulate? It began with an initial phase of the Colorado River crisis two decades ago.

Lake Mead had been nearly full and lapping at the spillway gates of Hoover Dam in early 2000. Then extreme drought and heavy water use sent the reservoir into a rapid decline.

In 2002, as the reservoir level dropped, the Southern Nevada Water Authority used more than its allocation of Colorado River water. At that point, the agency’s leaders decided to pivot quickly toward conservation.

They focused on promoting cash rebates to help customers rip out lawns and put in landscaping with desert plants.

In 2003, the Las Vegas area’s consumption of Colorado River water shrank more than 16%. Those conservation gains continued as the area’s water suppliers strengthened their rules, targeting grass.

In 2004, frontyard lawns were prohibited for new subdivisions. Golf courses were given water budgets. The water authority adopted seasonal watering restrictions.

Pictured: The suburban community of Mountain’s Edge, which has rock- and shrub-based yards instead of lawns, cuts a square through the barren-looking desert. In 2004, frontyard lawns were prohibited for new subdivisions in the Las Vegas area.

Since 2002, southern Nevada’s use of Colorado River water has decreased about 26%, even as the area’s population has rapidly grown. Per capita water use has dropped 48%.

And Las Vegas is continuing to tighten its restrictions on grass.

The state Legislature in 2021 passed a law that bans watering all decorative “nonfunctional” grass along streets, on medians, at homeowners associations, apartment complexes, businesses and other properties starting in 2027.

“For Las Vegas to be sustainable, it’s imperative,” said Colby Pellegrino, the water authority’s deputy general manager of resources. “That’s the first time we’ve actually said existing turf should no longer be watered.”

Since 2002, homeowners and others in the Las Vegas area have already removed about 205 million square feet of lawn, or more than 4,700 acres. The drip-irrigated plants and trees that replaced the grass require less than one-fourth the amount of water, saving an estimated 11.4 billion gallons per year.

In the next four years, much more grass is about to be ripped out. And newly built homes can no longer have any lawns at all, including in the backyard.

Grass will still be permitted for new parks, schools and cemeteries.

Las Vegas’ eradication of grass offers a view of the sorts of changes that other cities have been starting to adopt and may soon be forced to pursue on a larger scale as the river continues to decline...

Las Vegas is one of many cities along the Colorado River that have made major progress in reducing water use over the last two decades. In a recent study, researcher Brian Richter surveyed 28 urban water utilities and found that total water use in the cities dropped by 18% between 2000 and 2020, even as their combined population grew by 24%...

“Las Vegas has become a water conservation rock star in recent decades,” Richter said. “Their leadership in reducing outdoor water use is of particular importance.”

He said the area’s “cash for grass” program has become a model for cities across the West.

“The fact that they’ve now adopted a goal of further reducing their water use by another 23% by 2035 is truly admirable,” Richter said.”

-via Los Angeles Times, 1/29/23

[the-football-chick]

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[turfgrassdubai]

When you're sick of observing how day by day your surroundings get changed, you can calm your eyes with the serene beauty of artificial evergreen grass. 

Make contact with Dubai turf.

[intelligentliving]

Scientists Convert Old Tires Into High-Value Materials

Tires are manufactured for single use from a non-renewable resource. Some are broken down into crumbs to use as fillers in cement, asphalt, or artificial turf, and as fuel in the cement industry. However, there is no suitable method to recover the petroleum-based polymers from which they are made, and...

[bk-201-314]

Why is Turf Grass a Discourse?

Like, this is a thing actually happening right now on tumblr? Are we for real? This is hilarious only because otherwise it would be horrifying. 

When I first saw signs of the discourse on the nice green plant covering most of our yards I thought for sure it was a joke. We had already done this before and the results were not great *coughcough-as-the-increase-in-astroturf-in-cough-southern-United-States-would-show-cough*, we couldn’t possibly be doing this again, right? I was apparently very wrong as I saw more and more posts about it.

Grass and lawn owners were being called out, but why? People were left with many many questions I am sure; and as a Horticulture graduate in North America with a course of Turf Care under their belt, I’m hoping to make some clarifications for a few people.

The grass in most well-kept lawns on your average residential street today originated in Europe. Livestock grazing caused the grass there to begin to grow naturally shorter. This, in turn, became used as a defensive strategy for walled cities as the shorter grass surrounding them gave them a better line of site to approaching enemies. In the 17th century recreational grass came into use as formal open turf areas gained popularity with the rich for garden parties and polo matches. In the 18th century open space between gardens would be filled with turf in estates and parks, but still be grazed. That is until in 1830 when Edwin Budding invented the lawnmower.

Soon, turf grass came to the Americas during colonization and grew in popularity as cities established and then even more so when suburbia did after WWII.

This is where our issues begin. 

Under Anti-Grass or Anti-Lawn (or whatever the hell you want to call them) belief, today the modern lawn is an introduced species, therefore not entirely suited to our climates, therefore requiring more care. This seems especially true when they begin to discuss grass as a monoculture. Monocultures are mass plantings of a singular species as we see with many of our crops today and monocultures are notoriously known to struggle with pests and disease.

This seems to make a lot of sense to people who see grass as one singular species of which it is not. Many yards today are polystands. Meaning they consist of two or more species and often different cultivars of said species. You can go from one section of the yard to another and often find different species from one patch to the next. Polystands generally require less maintenance and are more resistant to pests and disease.

So why is there a belief that yards are monocultures? Three reasons: Sports, Sod, and People just not knowing any better.

Many sports fields are monocultures particularly golf courses as different grasses on your greens can impact the speed and movement of the ball. The golden child of sports grass is Agrostis stolonifera (Creeping Bentgrass) and in warmer climates, you’ll find Bermudagrass is the favourite. This is because Bentgrass is extremely aesthetically pleasing in both colour and texture. It also repairs itself quite well. Golf greens were considered the epitome of grass and therefore the desire of many a homeowner to the point where Creeping Bent was an extremely popular monoculture choice for residential yards at one time. That all changed when homeowners began to see how unrealistic the maintenance of these yards would be.

Agrostis stolonifera is the most high maintenance of the cold season grasses in North America.  It is not drought tolerant and requires syringing or misting on hot summer days. Active growing season means it can be cut almost daily and non-active seasons mean at least three times a week. It grows in so thick and is the highest thatch producer that it needs regular aeration and dethatching. This same thickness makes it very prone to disease which in turn would mean the use of pesticides. Creeping Bent is also a huge glutton with one of the highest fertilizer demands at 12-16 pounds of nitrogen per 1000ft per year with applications every 2-4 weeks.

Soon Bentgrass fell out of favour with residential owners but was replaced with Poa pratensis (Kentucky Bluegrass). The thing about Kentucky Blue was that it and its cultivars made up almost 100% of sod. Sod is a huge convenience, it gives you a yard instantly, but it is highly labour intensive to install, usually pretty expensive, and again it is mostly a monoculture.

So how are these residential monoculture plantings polystands today? We overseeded the crap out of our yards. See, those with sod often have a hard time caring for it and end up having to overseed any thin areas and those with Bentgrass yards knew it would be easier to throw more seed into the yard than to just tear it up. This works because most seed unless otherwise specified is sold in polystand mixtures. This is also extremely useful if you struggle with yard weeds. If you can, remove the weeds and as much of the root systems as possible by hand, then overseed. If you can get the grass to grow thick enough it will force out and prevent yard weeds.

Fun Fact: your yard and a lot of its weeds are both introduced species, but weeds like dandelions, clover, Henbit, and Creeping Charlie often provide the first food source for our pollinators.

Continuing with our anti-grassers vs. Introduced species, it seems that because our lawns are introduced that automatically makes them bad whether they’re polystands or not. Granted our modern turf grass is not the most environmentally friendly option when you compare it to our native perennial grasslands; with root structures many feet below the surface and ample food and habitat for pollinators and other wildlife, but our modern lawns are not the worst thing to have either *coughcough-astroturf-coughcough-concretejungles-cough*.

Our turf grass today does not require much maintenance after establishment, still produces large amounts of oxygen and increases air quality, still provides security via line of sight, still sequesters carbon dioxide, it still filters runoff and rainwater and recharges groundwater, it breaks down some pollutants, still reduces noise pollution, turf still provides food and habitat for insects and pollinators, it dissipates heat, and probably most effective is humans like it.  Humans often experience biophilia, we have a tendency to like other living things, nature, and green things in general.  Our need for our own plot of grass is theorized to come from encoded memories of African savannas. It seems strange until you realize that green is a calming colour for humans and reduces tension and specifically walking on grass barefoot releases an increase in endorphins and can lower stress up to 62%. Our modern day turf grass makes walking barefoot extremely practical. It is often softer, denser, and shorter to see obstacles.  

Overall, our turf grass isn’t a problem. Until it’s grown in areas where it shouldn’t be. Make sure you have the right species for your area, for your soil, for your yard’s amount of sunlight, and are planting it at the correct time (SPRING IS NOT THE SAME PLANTING TIME FOR EVERYTHING!). Remember that grass can go dormant and know when for your area so you don’t have to waste water on it.

Also, know that mosses are NOT options even if they’re native as they often are even more high maintenance than our European turf grasses. Yards turned into edible gardens are not always practical, any less maintenance, and depending on the crop choice can actually be damaging to the soil. Invasive ground-covers and garden plants should be a no-brainer, as in FUCK NO!

Those in arid regions should not have turf grass beyond their natural grasses. The water consumption of turf grass in these areas is absolutely out of control and people who live in these drought areas and insist on maintaining them are indeed selfish. You do not need and should not have grass. Xeriscaping removes the need for supplemental watering, is easy as hell, uses species native to your area, still looks fantastic, fulfills that human need for green life, is fairly inexpensive, and unlike astroturf and grass paint (yeah that’s a thing); that hold in heat, the native plants reduce heat in the surrounding area like grass would.

In Conclusion:

Don’t hate on turf grass or people who have turf grass. Instead, educate about the benefits of more naturalistic landscapes consisting of native species, offer hardier lower maintenance turf grass options for people and more effective polystands based on zones and the environment. Grass is not bad, people just don’t fully understand it or its requirements. It’s such a common thing that it is seen as something that must be of less value and less effort when instead it should be the opposite.