MyBuilder.com, the UK’s leading site for homeowners to find quality tradesmen, has seen a recent surge in families looking to replace their lawns with artificial grass. A new survey carried out by the site has confirmed that more people than ever now dream of ripping out their real lawn in favour of a synthetic substitute.
More than 40% of respondents to the MyBuilder.com poll said that their dream garden would have a low maintenance fake lawn, even though they make up a tiny proportion of all gardens in the UK today. The artificial lawn trend seems to be on the rise, with a huge 87% of people saying they expected fake grass to become an increasingly common sight across British gardens in the future.
With a further 7% of homeowners opting for hard paving for their ideal garden, barely half of those polled showed off their green fingers and said they still wanted a classic grass lawn.
The results come as millions of British people are suffering the effects of hay fever. A combination of factors, including wintry weather such as “the Beast from the East” means that the tree pollen season was delayed and condensed, and has now combined with the traditional grass pollen season in what many weather watchers have dubbed a “pollen bomb”.
High pollen levels are set to last throughout June, and are at their peak across most of England and Wales. It is estimated that one in five people across the UK suffer from hay fever, with allergies to grass pollen being the most common.
Although artificial grass is becoming ever more popular, the majority of those surveyed said that it wasn’t necessarily a convincing replica of the real thing - 76% reckoned they could tell it apart from its natural counterpart, although it wouldn’t put them off using it.
Fake grass is even making an appearance this month as the world’s football stars face off in Russia. Half of the dozen stadiums being used in the tournament feature high tech hybrid pitches, which combine natural grass with a small proportion of synthetic turf.
