Stories continue to surface in the media every year regarding homeowners caught disregarding City ordinances who've installed artificial grass on their front yards.

 Artificial grass is identified as a hardscape and is banned for use in front yards, typically where high-density residential homes are crammed on small lots with insufficient parking for multiple family cars.

In the effort to prevent homeowners from turning their front yards into a car park, municipalities took to writing bylaws effectively preventing just that. City bylaws put in place a hard and fast policy pre-artificial grasses inception restricting the use of hard surfaces by requiring a significant percentage of frontages contain living breathing plants such as grass, gardens or trees. Municipalities cite concerns of excessive water run-off on hardscapes that overwhelm storm drains, especially in events of significant rainfall.

Urban planners also cite the excessive heat factor of artificial grass contributing to global heat sink concerns. The bylaw intentionally or unintentionally ensnared homeowners who are looking to improve the overall esthetic of their property with having a low-maintenance, spotless, care-free artificial grass front lawn.

The ongoing headache and maintenance of real grass lawns are ever-increasingly challenging for homeowners with the long-needed pesticide bans in place, ever-growing tree canopies depraving lawns of much-needed sunshine.  Large tree roots imbibing nutrients, soil erosion and compaction, are added obstacles to even the most seasoned gardeners. With the unprecedented and growing generation of dog owners, every street and sidewalk sees non-stop dog walking, often resulting in never-ending yellow patches.

A growing segment of the downtown population is well past retirement age and still desiring to remain in their homes but finding it more difficult with the challenge of real grass but want the yard space to be attractive without the headaches.

Even though there have been improvements over the years in the manufacture of artificial grass, city planners remain unmoved. A few products are porous, to some extent; however, most require a compactable aggregate sub-surface no different than other hard surfaces. This fact means excessive water run-off is still an issue, and other improvements to artificial grass don't address the excessive heat concerns often cited.

At the risk of receiving high fines and orders to remove the non permitted hardscaping, frustrated homeowners are looking for real alternatives to abide by the softscape component of the City bylaws.

ProGreen Canada has revealed recent and real innovative product advancements

never before seen in the artificial grass industry. The new product Fairlawn/Greenplay employs a Dual Fiber (40% more durable than other conventional grass monofilament fibres) designed explicitly for landscape grass areas. The fibre fabrication of Fairlawn/Greenplay turf most notably can accept 2 lbs per ft2 of a 100% organic infill resulting in a product that stays almost as cool as real grass.

The new 100% organic infill "Greenplay" is harvested from cork and coconuts shells from pesticide and toxic-free crops. The Infill being 100% recyclable in nature, unlike other infills, doesn't need to be removed to landfill at the end of the artificial turf's life. The new Dual fibre turf is a thatch free landscape product, the key to making possible the low-bulk density fill to be accepted into the fibres. The process of keeping the Fairlawn Turf System cool requires only 10% of the water to maintain a real grass lawn. Think of the water savings!

Absorbing 150% of its weight in moisture, the Infill absorbs humidity and rainfall, significantly reducing water run-off.  Greenplay Infill slowly releases moisture back into the atmosphere in an evaporative cycle like natural grass.

Safety Temperature Reduction

Independent test results at 50° C full sun; show the new Fairlawn Turf is just 6 °C warmer than real grass, comparing all other artificial turf products reaching blistery hot temperatures of 76.66 ° C. The FIFA Method 14 test classify Fairlawn Greenplay as a Category 1, same as grass at 50 °C.

ProGreen's patent-pending, non-perforated backing increases drainage efficiency by 100%

.

Possibly as important as the benefits of heat reduction, water run-off ProGreen incorporates their patent-pending ProFlow Backing Quadri-Backing, which drains a whopping 437 Gallons per hour (even faster than real grass) compared to conventional turf backings that drain 40-60 gallons per hour. By employing the non -perforated backing, there is a needless concern of weeds infiltrating the backing, and meaning there is minimum aggregate required. The beefier the aggregate base, the slower the drainage, and using the Fairlawn turf system, the drainage will no different than the drainage of a natural lawn.

Promotion of much-needed car spaces.

ProGreen Canada further submits by using its turf system in conjunction with its Ultrabase panels; municipalities should consider allowances for extra car parking, thus relieving the city packed streets of cars. Many city dwellers would be wholly relieved for that extra car space, making for less stress all around.

The ProGreen Canada Fairlawn/Greenplay driveway is the same as an asphalt drive installation measurable excavation depth of 14". However, unlike paved asphalt driveways, the

ProGreen Canada Fairlawn/Greenplay Driveway

uses a fully draining non-compactable aggregate, i.e. HPB or clear stone. Fully supporting the weight of the parked vehicles, Ultrabase Professional panels are employed over a Geotextile fully draining fabric.

The Fairlawn/Greenplay turf is installed over the Ultrabase panels creating a dedicated holding space that stores volumes of water, relieving overburden storm drains and maintaining the beautification and esthetic of real grass.

Other mitigating factors of using artificial grass more commonly not only include

temperatures almost as cool as real grass,

(no fertilizers ending up in our lakes), a 100% organic infill that retains and sucks water out of the humidity, (cooler feeling temperatures), savings of valuable water resources, free up busy street parking, less noise and no ongoing pollution generated from weekly gasoline lawnmowers.

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