Let’s face it, Las Vegas is hot. As a matter of fact, Las Vegas is really, really hot. When people from other areas hear that our summers generally stay in triple digits for numerous months over the course of summer, with the peak temperatures sometimes hitting as much as 115 degrees, they wonder how we can go outside during those times. People who have lived here for more than a few months will generally compare our summers to winters on the east coast, saying the same thing about the fact that you cannot spend time outside during freezing temperatures either. What makes the conversation a little different when discussing hot summer temperatures is the difficulty in keeping landscaping alive and healthy. After all, Las Vegas is actually a desert no matter how hard we try to make it into a lush and green oasis in our yards. The natural state of things is rocks, sand and very few plants that need only tiny amounts of water in order to survive. Residents of Las Vegas will rarely accept the natural state of things, and will almost always want to customize their yards to be less like the desert and more like a temperate climate, but without the benefit of artificial irrigation and sprinklers there is little chance that any of those plants you install will survive. The same is true for your lawn, and putting in sod in Las Vegas is really asking for difficulty. Even if you do maintain a heavy watering routine (which is not allowed due to drought restrictions on wasting water) you are still going to find it very difficult to maintain a green and healthy lawn. Grass is not natural to this environment and this kind of heat, and attempting to grow it is going to be a constant source of aggravation. The general process is that it stays green and beautiful for about a month before it begins to turn brown and struggle, eventually looking thin and unhealthy.
Astro turf (also known as synthetic grass or faux turf) is a plastic carpeting of formed strands of grass, designed to look like a natural lawn. The grass blades are made by melting colored plastic and pushing it through holes in a plate before adhering it to a backing, and because of the numerous colors and blade thicknesses and lengths that turf companies produce, you can get a fake grass product that looks quite natural if it is installed correctly. By using a professional artificial turf installer who takes the time to install the underlay material and correctly stake it at critical points, you will also get a product that actually feels like real grass as well. Installing Astro turf into Las Vegas yards makes sense because the product is able to withstand high heat levels before melting, and even though there have been cases where sun reflecting off windows intensifies the heat in a beam enough to melt the plastic, this is incredibly rare. The typical Las Vegas summer sill not cause damage to the plastic blades of grass, which can withstand temperatures far higher than 120 degrees before being damaged. For this reason, it makes nothing but sense to ditch the real grass in favor of synthetic turf products in these hot, desert climates.