The Grass Is Always Greener With Synthetic Lawns That Are Always Perfect

Courtesy of the Star-Ledger Staff
Written by Kimberly L. Jackson
July 21, 2005

Jack Wojslawowicz's lawn is always perfect. He never fights weeds, never mows, never waters, never fertilizes.

Under scalding sun or freezing snow his lawn's verdant hue remains unchanged. Each and every day of the year, in drought or deluge, this Bayonne engineer's lawn is evenly manicured, spreading out like a lush evergreen carpet -- because that's pretty much what it is.

Wojslawowicz's lawn is synthetic. Yes, fake. But this is not your grandmother's back-porch AstroTurf®.

It's softer and surprisingly realistic. Kid-size cleats are digging into it at a growing number of athletic fields across the state. It's also creating home putting greens, cushy day-care center play areas and no-water-required commercial landscapes.

And as time-starved homeowners embrace lifelike faux plants for their interiors -- and sometimes exteriors -- artificial turf installers like Jeff Mitnick envision a day of widespread acceptance.

"At some point the government is going to give homes that have this rebates," muses Mitnick, who owns JM Synthetic Grass in Rutherford.

In support of his vision, he rattles off the potential environmental benefits: his lawns don't need watering, don't need chemicals that can contaminate our waterways, don't require gas-powered mowers with their noise and air-polluting emissions. And "you aren't creating waste with grass removal," he adds.

If you're ready to lose the lawn guy, he offers those benefits and others for a little more than $5 a square foot, installed. Figure about $4,700 for a 900-square-foot lawn.

Ask Mitnick about pitfalls and he can't think of one. What if it gets damaged? Cut out the injured area and have a good strip glued or sewn in, he says. Someone throws a lit cigarette on it? A blade or two might melt, but it's fire resistant and won't burn, he says.

To groom, "you either rake it or blow it," he says. "The natural weather keeps it clean."

Mitnick, who usually works with commercial clients, says he has laid plastic turf at about four dozen homes since he opened up shop three years ago. He's been in the business 12 years as an installer, he says.

The first house he did was his own, and his earliest customers were those who saw and asked about his synthetic front lawn, he says.

It used to bother Mitnick that his grass is always green -- especially in the dead of winter -- but he got used to it, he said.

Not everyone does. The unseasonable color is just one of the things that peeves those who don't think fake grass is good. Neighborhood groups in some states have tried to ban it. Environmentalists say it cuts down on biodiversity, being inhospitable to insects and the wildlife that feed on them. Grass and sod producers also aren't taking kindly to competitors peddling a phony product -- but more on that later.

Synthetic lawn owners are smitten, nevertheless. Wojslawowicz (pronounced voice-wa-vo-vitch), who works long hours and travels frequently, was seduced by the prospect of a maintenance-free lawn.

"I guess I really don't have a green thumb," says Wojslawowicz, an onsite landlord whose property has six apartments in two buildings. "When I tried to fertilize it, I'd burn it," he said of the 1,000 square feet of lawn around his buildings. "Then there was all the work involved. I'm looking to make life easier as I get older," the 57-year-old said. "This is one way to make life easier."

Going faux is even an option for self-described landscape fanatics like Pat Carr of Lyndhurst. The retired law enforcement officer is known to pull out the lawn mower twice a week to groom his living front lawn. His faux grass is in an extensively landscaped backyard, surrounded by a collection of real shrubs and flowers.

"I have a lovely yard and the only thing that wouldn't grow is grass," he said of his shady retreat, replete with koi pond and cozy seating. "I've been in this house 40 years and I tried every type of grass -- name brands, not-so-name brands," he says. "Finally, I surrendered, but only in the back, though."

To one so obsessed with the appearance of his 30-by-20-foot backyard, the artificial lawn "looks great and feels just like grass. This was like the answer to all my problems," Carr said.

Mitnick says the new synthetic grasses are acceptable to customers like Carr because their blades, usually made of polyethylene, polypropylene or a blend of the two, are softer and have a more realistic texture and coloring than the spiky old indoor/outdoor carpets that required a fire-walker's courage to cross with bare feet.

SYNLawn, an Florida company that sells and has installed lawns in New Jersey, offers six trademarked grass styles, three of which are made of nylon. With names like SYNRye and SYNFescue, all are designed with color variation to more closely resemble the real grasses they mimic.

"Our landscape grasses are nylon, a more durable fiber than polyethylene," says Chad Cole, a SYNLawn spokesman.

SYNLawn's prices range from $3.49 to $5.49 per square foot, with professional installation adding $3 to $7 per square foot, he said.

There are at least 23 synthetic grass makers in the U.S. alone and hundreds of dealers, according to Ron VanGelderen, president of the Synthetic Turf Council, a Georgia-based organization including designers, manufacturers and installers, created in 2003 to address the industry's desire "to enhance its reputation for quality."

Lots of manufacturers means lots of choices. There is a wide assortment of styles, blade lengths and colors (some not so natural).

"These are all new developments within the last five to eight years," says VanGelderen, who formerly worked for the carpet industry. "It has really helped the market to grow because there is such a variety available."

Fieldturf, a favorite for athletic fields, installs its products at homes, as do others. Even the granddaddy of synthetic grass is still around. AstroTurf®, which was created as Chemgrass, was renamed in the 1960s for its high-profile placement at the Houston AstroDome. The modern product has morphed into AstroLawn® for landscapes and AstroPlay® for sports fields.

With proper installation, makers say artificial turf should last 15 to 20 years, and many offer 5- to 10-year warranties against fading.

Those who deal in fake turf are banking on homeowners accepting it as a solution to a variety of landscape challenges.

"This is not designed to replace rolling hills of grass, this is only designed to replace areas where people can't grow grass or don't want to pay for maintenance," says Mitnick. "In the inner cities, I can put this over concrete and give people a yard where they never had a yard before."

In the case of a Middlesex couple, Ellen and Matt Hoelzel, the backyard lawn had literally gone to the dogs.

"We had grass when we first got married (19 years ago), then we got our first dog, a boxer," said Ellen Hoelzel.

Boxers are dogs on the run, explained Hoelzel, a founding member of New Jersey Boxer Rescue, which finds homes for unwanted boxers.

"Boxers run around in circles and are known for doing the 'boxer burn'" -- as in burning off the lawn, she explained.

When they adopted another boxer, the result was even less grass and more dirt, dust and mud. "It was getting to the point where nobody wanted to go into the backyard -- and we have a pool," she said.

The Hoelzels had artificial grass installed last May, and Ellen Hoelzel says they couldn't be happier.

Even cleaning up after the dogs is easy, says Hoelzel, who owns a dog-waste removal company. She says she picks up solid waste as quickly as possible. "Then you just hit it with a hose and everything washes away."

Still, homeowners like the Hoelzels are in the minority.

Living landscapes are a $68 billion dollar industry in the United States, with Americans spending an estimated $20 billion annually on lawn-care products and services alone. All that seeding, mowing, fertilizing and spraying against plant and insect pests produces a welcome source of green -- as in cash -- for thousands of companies and their employees.

Last year, the Illinois-based Turfgrass Producers International asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to look into the safety of artificial grass. The organization, which represents turf-grass and sod producers in 40 countries, produced and presented the EPA with a long list of concerns about artificial turf. The organization would like the EPA to regulate the use of synthetic grass based on the presence of potentially health-threatening materials in the recycled tires sometimes used to add shock absorbency and to help weigh down the grass.

"We assembled a task force to protect our industry," said Bob O'Quinn, a spokesman for TPI and editor of the trade magazine Turf News. "Obviously, it was self-serving, but as we got into it we discovered that there is some risk," he said.

Among concerns the group is exploring: Can antiseptic cleaners properly sanitize artificial turf, particularly when it is used on playing fields and at day-care centers where it could come in contact with blood, sweat, spit, urine and other body fluids.

The EPA has asked TPI to provide more research before it will consider any action, O'Quinn said. The organization has hired a research consultant to further investigate potential environmental and health threats, he said.

Another concern is that artificial turf tends to heat up.

Brigham Young University officials in 2002 investigated overheating complaints at its football practice field, part of which is covered with synthetic grass. According to an investigation report presented by Frank Williams, a BYU professor of plant science, the surface temperature of the field's synthetic turf was 37 degrees higher than nearby asphalt and 86.5 degrees higher than natural grass on the other half of the field. Investigators, who used infrared and soil thermometers to measure the field in 98-degree weather, recorded temperatures as high as 200 degrees Fahrenheit on the synthetic surface, according to the report.

Williams attributes the heat to high light intensity. "This high light intensity is absorbed by the artificial turf and causes the temperature to go up," he says.

SYNLawn's Cole says both the composition of the grass and how it is installed have an effect on overheating. "On a field that is filled with black rubber, it's going to radiate surface heat. It's definitely a big concern," he said. "We're running tests on that very thing."

The company's tests have shown cooler temperatures above its nylon turf, which does not require rubber infill, he said.

Ellen Hoelzel, who considers overheating the only problem with her artificial lawn, says they simply hose the turf down when it gets too hot.

The BYU study found that watering significantly cooled the synthetic surface, but the heat returned quickly. In just 20 minutes, temperatures were almost as high as before the turf had been watered, according to the report.

The BYU practice field, like Hoelzel's lawn, has rubber infill. Williams says a sprinkler system was initially installed at the BYU field with the artificial turf to help keep it clean. It is now used to control heat as well, he says.

Mitnick says he has not had any overheating complaints from his customers and that the infill he uses varies with the intended use for each installation, taking heat gain into consideration.

Synthetic grass has a place at heavily used athletic fields, "particularly in New Jersey where there is not a lot of room to expand," says Brad Park, who coordinates sports turf research at Rutgers University. But in many cases, natural grass could hold up just as well if properly installed and maintained, Park says. He suspects the same may be true for some homeowners who can't grow grass.

Park cautioned those considering artificial lawns to get all the facts -- being familiar with maintenance requirements, proper drainage, safety and other concerns before making a decision.

Since these lawns usually require an investment of thousands, their effect on resale also should be considered, Park says.

"I'd be curious about how a synthetic lawn would contribute to or detract from the value of a home compared to a natural lawn," he said, citing the commonly held belief that good landscaping can add 15 to 20 percent to a home's value.

Ellen Hoelzel believes a buyer's reaction to her backyard lawn could only be positive. "It's so aesthetically pleasing. We figured nobody would say 'Ewww, yuck, we're going to have to pull that up.'"

Hoelzel, who says she doesn't take heat well, usually finds a spot in the shade with her dogs. She uses a large umbrella over her lawn chair.

Hoelzel admits the grass has its pros and cons. "But we have so many pros that the heat is not really an issue for us," she said. "We've never used the yard as much as we do now."