Artificial Grass: Why the Cheap Stuff Smells
You want an end to muddy dog paws. But if you buy cheap fake grass, your garden will smell like a public toilet by July. Here is how we engineer it properly.
The Muddy Dog Problem
Winter with a dog is a nightmare. Mud on the carpets. Mud on the sofa.
You get fed up. You decide to get artificial grass.
But you go cheap.
First mistake: It looks like a neon greengrocer’s display. It looks tacky.
Second mistake: The smell.
July rolls around. The dog uses the garden. The sun bakes the turf. Suddenly, your patio smells awful. You can't even open the kitchen windows, let alone sit out there with a drink.
The Sub-Base Trap
Why does it smell? It's not the plastic grass. It's the groundworks.
Cheap contractors dig out two inches of soil, throw down some sharp sand, and roll the grass over the top.
Sand acts like a sponge. It soaks up the dog urine. It holds it there. The sun heats it up, and it stinks.
The Proper Dig
We don't use sand sub-bases for dogs.
We dig deeper. We lay a specialized, fully porous granite stone sub-base. When the dog goes, the rain flushes it straight through the stone and into the earth. It drains instantly.
Then we lay premium, heavy-weight turf. It has a dead brown thatch woven into the root zone. It actually looks like real grass, not a cheap carpet.
The Deodorising Infill
We don't stop there.
We don't brush normal sand into the grass. Normal sand just traps the dog wee.
We use a proper deodorising infill. It kills the ammonia dead. The smell never even starts.
Zero Mud. Zero Smell.
You want a zero-maintenance garden. You want clean dog paws in January.
But you don't want a tacky, smelly patio in summer.
It comes down to the engineering underneath the plastic. Dig it out properly. Use the right stone. Use the right infill.
Stop by the office at 78 Alma Rd, Bournemouth BH9 1AN, UK, or call 07835 390845.
