Las Vegas is a hot climate. As a matter of fact, the closest weather comparison on earth to Las Vegas is Afghanistan. While it is not news to anyone who lives here that it is hot in the summer months, the question about the best ways to deal with that heat come to mind. Over the past few years our area has been undergoing a severe drought, and the dwindling water supplies at Lake Mead have prompted restrictions for residents to conserve water including limitations on the times that you can irrigate your lawn and times you can wash your car. The conservation effort itself is enough for many residents to begin thinking about the ways that they can conserve water, but for others less concerned about conservation there are still the issues of care and maintenance of your landscaping. In a nutshell, it is really, really hard to keep a green lawn in Las Vegas. The weather gets so extreme in the summer months that even frequent watering is usually not enough to keep your lawn green and healthy, resulting in brown, dead patches or even an entire lawn of dead grass. So what do smart Las Vegas residents do to keep their homes looking great while still doing their part to conserve water? They install artificial turf, also known as fake grass.
The entire concept of xeriscaping is the removal of water-hungry plants and the installation of landscaping elements that need either zero water or very little water. The common name for xeriscaping is “desert landscaping” and it generally means the creation of a space that uses the beautiful elements that one would find in the desert, brought together in a way that beautifies a home yard. While many people in Las Vegas absolutely love the idea of complete xeriscaping so there is no need for watering whatsoever, others will choose a mixture of elements that need no watering and plants that need very little in order to survive. Still others just want a green lawn like they had in other areas of the country, and without that patch of green they feel like something is missing. The answer is the installation of artificial turf.
Artificial turf is easy to install for a professional who is familiar with the process. Most homeowners are not going to have the experience and tools necessary to do a good job on this type of installation, so it is probably best left to companies like ours who specialize in it. We can take out that grass that has been so problematic in the past keeping healthy, and replace it with an artificial lawn that will look and feel very much like live grass, only without the watering issues that you had before.
Will a hot climate like Las Vegas melt my artificial grass, or make it hard to spend time on? You may have seen articles in the Las Vegas Sun or other newspapers over the years talking about the fact that fake grass gets hotter than real grass. This is true, due to the fact that the artificial turf and the rubber fill underneath it trap in the heat in a way that real grass does not, causing it to be potentially 50 degrees hotter than traditional grass in the summer months. The answer to cooling it down dramatically if you want to spend time outside on days that are upwards of 115 degrees (not that many people are going to spend much time out in that kind of heat) is a quick and light hosing down of water. By lightly spraying the artificial turf with water you will reduce the heat significantly, allowing you and your family to enjoy your artificial lawn on even the hottest days. Giving the lawn a quick spray of water only on the times when you are going to use it in the summer is far more conservative than trying to water it every day to keep it alive. In addition to this concern, some wonder if their artificial turf will bleach out and fade in the Las Vegas heat. The answer is no, over time your lawn will age slightly, but if properly maintained should not fade very much at all.
If you are interested in getting artificial turf installed in Las Vegas, contact us today. We are the local experts, and will be happy to give you a free estimate.