While many in our area are seeing visions of their gardens dance in the seed magazines we spent a good portion of May in Las Vegas for the first leg of our spring vacation. Our house is still for sale so I really don't want to get too attached to starting up the garden beds although I will be focusing on movable containers this year. At any rate May for us is always spring vacation month that sets my garden beds back a bit but not so much so that I can't have a very successful gardening season. When we first started going to Las Vegas I noticed two startling contrasts.
There were the xeroscaping landscapes that while taking advantage of rock and low maintenance plants looked rather barren. Then there were the lush, green landscapes certainly not adaptable to desert conditions. This year I noticed a change especially with the new, high end casinos. In place of the xeroscaping was astroturf giving the appearance of the expected green carpet of grass without the environmental impact. In fact from what I read the astroturf is made from recycled plastic making it an environmentally friendly choice. It is pleasing to the eye, has a much lower carbon footprint over its lifespan and eliminates a lot of maintenance.
I'm still not 100% sold on astroturf although I do know it has been used successfully for years in sports stadiums and recently for the purpose I described. I won't cut any corners in saying I really don't like grass as in the pristine green natural carpets. Lawns are high maintenance and in most cases chemically addicted. However, I can see where astroturf would be a solution to smaller areas where you want the appearance of grass without the upkeep. It could be one gardening solution for those types of areas.
Happy Gardening!
Garden Gnome
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