How to Find the Best Artificial Grass for YOU.

What’s the best artificial grass? Is there even such a thing? Yes! And… no. There’s no such thing as the best artificial grass ever, but there is such a thing as the best artificial grass for you. In this post, we’ll give you a simple, direct system that you can use to select your perfect grass – the same system we’ve used for 11 years to match our customers with their grass. It’s simple, it’s free, and it really works! Behold… the MENU BOARD. 

Here’s how to use it.

Step 1: Choose your Application

Application simply refers to how you intend to use your grass. This is important because many grasses are manufactured for highly-specific uses. A putting green grass typically isn’t a good fit for an aesthetic-only landscape application. Likewise, a purely aesthetic landscape grass wouldn’t last a second on the football field. The right grass for the right application is a stress-free and financially-sound investment.

Let’s say a homeowner is looking to install artificial grass in her back yard where she expect to host large gatherings regularly.  She determine that aesthetics is most important to her. That narrows down her search to just the grasses designed specifically for landscape applications.

Step 2: Choose Your Traffic Level

Traffic level simply refers to how much foot traffic you expect the grass to receive. This step goes hand-in-hand (or foot-in-foot?) with Step One, as your application will often help determine your traffic level. Artificial grass in a football stadium can be expected to receive regular, heavy foot traffic; a back yard putting green might receive medium-level traffic and a purely aesthetic front yard isn’t likely to receive much at all. Simple enough. But wait! It gets more complicated.

Back to our hypothetical back yard grass project. We had determined that this would be considered a landscape application, but because it will receive high traffic at regular intervals, it must also have outstanding blade memory and a resistance to matting, or the flattening of the blades. This application and traffic level demands a grass with highly-specific features. Good for our homeowner to know as she shop for grass!

Step 3: Choose Your Blade Profile

Blade profiles determine a wide array of grass characteristics, from blade memory to temperature control to shine level. We offer grasses in 14 different blade shapes, from Willow to Mini-W to Stem. Instead of telling you about what each of these shapes do, we’ll let you take a look for yourself here. This step is best completed with the help of one of our turf experts. Once you’ve narrowed your options down to a handful of candidates for the best artificial grass for you, blade shape will likely be the tiebreaker!

Let’s say our homeowner has found two grasses that will work for her back yard project, but one of them feels so much softer! Lo, and behold! It’s Diamond-Cool 50, a grass with a blade type known for softness yet outstanding performance under high traffic.

Looks like we’ve got a winner!

But wait, isn’t there a step four?

Step 4: Choose Your Accessories

And by “accessories” we don’t mean plastic flamingos or garden gnomes secretly containing your spare house keys.

Accessories in the artificial grass world are often highly critical to the performance and longevity of the grass. Take infill, for example. Infill comes in many forms but is most often a sand-like substance whose primary job is to support the grass blades and prevent matting.

The most basic form of infill we offer is silica sand. Because it’s raw silica and can be stirred up to form an unhealthy dust, we only advise it for installations that will get little or no foot traffic.

In the middle is Zeolite, an infill that incorporates odor-eliminating technology, but isn’t designed to sanitize or prevent fungus from growing.

Our advanced infills Mellowfill and Herofill are designed to work with most applications, incorporating anti microbial and antifungal agents for added health and safety benefits. We often recommend these advanced infills for those who have pets, kids, or plan to spend a lot of time on and around their grass.

Let’s take one final look at our homeowner’s hypothetical back yard project, applying our infill knowledge. Since this artificial grass will receive a lot of foot traffic, silica sand would be a decidedly poor match. Zeolite could be a cost-effective option, especially if our homeowner doesn’t have kids or pets. However, food and drink are likely to be a part of her regular social gatherings, so, assuming some of that is likely to make its way to the grass, we’d recommend Herofill or Mellowfill. This ensures an artificial lawn that is easy to clean and low maintenance.

Infill isn’t the only accessory you’ll want to consider. We carry a slew of others to fit our customers’ unique needs and installation specifications, so be sure to discuss your project with one of our turf experts for accessory recommendations.

Next Steps

And there you have it! You’ve found the best artificial grass and accessories in the whole wide world for YOU! Of course, there are always additional considerations unique to everyone’s artificial grass project. Next we encourage you to come talk with one of our turf experts about your project. We’re here to make the process go smoothly and to help you achieve your dream landscape. As always, we’re happy, we’re helpful, we’re happy to help!

We’ll see you in the showroom!