AIBU. Public flogging for garden taste misdemeanors

Hopefully anyone who watched Chris Packham's brilliant documentary on BBC 4 last Monday entitled 'The British Garden: Life & Death on Your Lawn' will be enough to make those tempted to put down artificial turf think twice. Too much wildlife is dependent on the real stuff.

Thanks for joining in on a fun topic. I have to say I've never ever mistaken plastic grass for real grass but, however 'realistic' that's not the point. How much hassle is grass? More importantly birds and insects can't really do anything with plastic grass and there is waaaay too much plastic in the world as it is. Also not sure of the connection with wind chimes. They can be a noise nuisance if you are sensitive but they don't harm nature. Wig is a good analogy. Its a wig for the garden. A bad wig that fools no one and looks ridiculous. Don't want to trim grass once a fortnight - grow meadow flowers and leave well alone.

When I was a kid a child down the road had a meadow garden (or rather their parents only mowed the front) and we LOVED "exploring" the "jungle".

Kids do not need a flat sterile "lawn" to enjoy a garden.

Plastic grass is the devil's blanketing, as far as I'm concerned. Nothing in the way of animal life can survive beneath it and in hot weather it gets incredibly hot. And how will it look in a year or so when dogs/cats/birds have contributed plenty of excreta? Also - daisies. No daisies!

Maybe we need to put ourselves in the position of an old person living alone and unable to afford a little man to cut the grass for them. The "environment" has to be about people as well as wildlife.

That is very tasteful,I dont think my black Ford Fiesta would look quite so fetching
You can paint it downtoearth!
Just think - the possibilities are endless

Unfortunately, my 'meadow' looks more like a weedy patch at the moment but there are some interesting plants coming up.
The idea was to look like this:

And there is plenty of grass around anyway. (Apart from the huge chunks the builders have built on)

I haven't got a fake lawn but am considering it, I may have a bit of a rethink.
What is really driving me mad is my neighbours flipping apple tree dropping rotten apples all over my garden. I loked it up and legally i cannot through them back over to her garden. I have young grandchildren and I don't want them picking them up. Then in the front of my house I have her huge I've that goes right down my fence. I have to sort that out as well. Then at the back of my garden I have huge trees. The branches grow right over my garden shading both my flower beds. I have to pay to get someone to cut them back.
None of these problems are of my making. People should consider other people before planting intrusive trees, plants etc.
And by the way I hate worms with a passion.

Gosh I should have previewed that post. There are some types but I'm sure you get my drift.

Maybe we need to put ourselves in the position of an old person living alone and unable to afford a little man to cut the grass for them. The "environment" has to be about people as well as wildlife.

Fake grass requires more maintenance and expense than other lawn alternatives! Lets stop pretending that anyone needs fake grass. People get it because they like it not because they have to!

Yes the environment is about people too. Peoples health is directly related to the health of the whole ecosystem: you cant pic n chose to only care for one part of it it is all interconnected, like the systems of the body.

If trees/plants are "our" lungs, mud, marsh & soil is our gut! In recent years marsh/mud/non "lawn" land has been seen as a problem to fix/drain/cover! But muddy marshy soil absorbs carbon! Without it we are screwed!

Garden doesnt HAVE to = green lawn!

In the 80s there was for a time a trend favoring the types of reeds that thrive in damper soggier parts of gardens where grass doesnt thrive.

Bark mulsh the dark corner and put swings there

Make a "mud kitchen" feature of it for the GKs.

Dark damp areas arent SUPPOSED to look like a neat lush green lawn, but there are plants and animals that thrive in those conditions and for us to thrive we need those damp earthy areas to be "working" and keeping the ecosystems "gut healthy" and keep absorbing carbon for us!

People should consider other people before planting intrusive trees especially people who border on heathlands and other nature reserves. E.g. Rhododendron effectively sterilises our natural areas but then you see people near nature reserves actively planting it!

Plastic grass is allright on a football ground, but not in a garden.Plastic flowers, why bother,as for gravel without pots of flowers around,its an eye sore and waste of time IMHU.

I’m sure plastic grass will fall out of favour along with single use plastics and plastic bag use. I’m sure it’s convenient for some but a big fat no in the long term. I saw a garden in Scotland where the owner had used all sorts of junk as planters in the garden- I did laugh at 2 old toilets planted up with geraniums labelled “his” and “hers”

Ponds sometimes do better out of direct sunlight too

"Oh I couldnt grow a lawn there so I HAD to fake grass it" is disingenuous. People get it because they want it.

I feel I have to admit to being a fan of wind chimes.

I was given a tiny silver tinkling one, from Glastonbury many years ago. Then OH made me a larger one from metal (he had to cut it so the tubes chimed properly) and handed it to me as a birthday surprise many years ago. It's in the back garden and chimes softly and gently in a breeze. It doesn't clang.
You know that woman in the garden centre who has to set off all the wind-chimes to hear what they sound like? Well, that's me.

We have a lovely, green lush garden with trees, lawns, a pond, arbours shady nooks and flowering borders thanks mainly to the efforts of gardening fanatic OH. I too think artificial grass looks (yuck) wrong but I can understand why some people use it.

This really caught my attention as I received an unsigned letter this morning from the 'Residents' of my road complaining about our 'overgrown' lawn (it was mowed last week), having enough fairy lights to furnish an Indian restaurant (don't have any lights in either the front or back garden at all) which should, according to the author of the letter, have been 'taken down after Christmas' and of having a 'dump of a front garden' - garden is tidy with flowering shrubs and containers. However, my next door neighbour is currently caring for his wife who had a very bad stroke just before Christmas last year and is still in recovery from it. Their garden is overgrown (we did cut it back for them but he said he would be able to deal it with it so we didn't ask again). He put up the icicle Christmas lights around the front windows and garage of his house just before his wife became ill and they are solar lights so switch on automatically at dusk. He does have two cars full of assorted bags of things on the driveway and bits of wood lying around in front of the garage, so I am presuming they got the house number wrong and it should have gone to them instead. All the letter harps on about is how it is having a detrimental effect on the value of the houses - not one word about offering to help or do you need a hand. It has really annoyed me - especially because who ever sent it didn't have the guts to sign it.

DD rents and her back garden is paved and gravelled so she bought some fake grass so that DGD would have somewhere soft to play - she doesn’t like it much but, like Paddyann needs must. She also has lots of plants in tubs.
I have bamboo wind chimes too Lemongrove and a cat called Colin and a gnome called David who are both practically hidden in the lavender. Each to his/her own.

I am waiting for them to produce plastic grass in a variety of colours. Why only green????? ?

Lully you can get "outdoor carpets" in all colours (for some reason????) Google it!

Dot thats horrible! And in my experience the people who harp on about things devaluing their homes have no intention of selling anyway (theyre the types who waste agents time by getting regular valuations to see what theyve "made" on their house )

I bet its just one nasty sole ranger trying to sound like its "the neighbourhood"

For every patch of plastic my friend and I are distributing poppy and California poppy seeds.
So if you still have some seeds take them out with you and just shake them all about but obviously not in someone's front garden?

Gillybob, I am complaining and I have to say our home is as environmentally friendly as it can be. You use this stufff to clean the lawn for who, the sake of the children. Well keep on using plastic instead of natural and you will find your gc living in a terrible world without wildlife and anything natural. Its not for us that we are trying to rid the place of plastic but the next generation so they have the nature that we had.

Artificial grass....what the hell is that all about...not even a daisy sprouting to break up the overpowering ‘greenness’ . Yuk..Yuk...Yuk!

....as an adjunct...if I hadn’t any grass, I would have a beautiful memory of my 3 year old son making a daisy chain all those years ago. I’d mow any amount of kawn to keep that memory.

Trouble is it doesnt last long , we put some on our family graves two years ago. It was expensive but the backing has rotted