Grass Allergies

Many people suffer from what is commonly referred to as "Hay fever", essentially an illness caused by an allergic reaction to pollen being breathed in or getting into the eyes. Tracking down the type of pollen that a person is allergic to can be difficult but if you can identify the time of year and the circumstances in which your hay fever is triggered, then you have a good chance of discovering what you have to avoid.

For example:

• Early Spring is the time for tree pollens (eg. oak, ash, silver birch)


• May to August is the time for grass pollens (eg. meadow grass, cocksfoot, rye)


• Late summer into early autumn is the time for weed pollen (eg. dock, nettle, mugwort)

Based on the above guidelines (courtesy of the BBC's Summer Hay Fever page), if someone starts with hay fever in May, June, July or August and spends a lot of time in the garden or near open grassed areas then there's every chance that they have some type of grass allergy. As the BBC page suggests, their best means of reducing symptoms (other than medication) is to avoid grassed areas, get someone else to mow the lawn and never lie down on freshly cut grass.

However, they omitted one other option - have an artificial lawn installed - they'll never have to cut the grass again! In Britain we always like to think it will be a good summer with balmy evenings where you can sit outside, enjoy the fresh air, a beautiful sunset and perhaps drinks with friends and family or even a bbq. With artificial grass in your garden, anyone with a grass allergy should be more than happy to come to the party!

Artificial Grass Roof Garden

Grass gives a lot of pleasure to people, particularly in the summer months but what if you don't have a garden? Well, if you have access to some sort of roof space the answer is to create your own green, artificial grass terrace. You might be in a top floor apartment with direct access to the roof of the building or the roof space of an attached garage or an annexe might be available to you.

Roof gardens are becoming increasingly popular and our blog article on artificial grass roof gardens last summer was testimony to this, generating a lot of interest from artificial grass customers. In fact, our in-house installation team have just installed Lifestyle® City artificial grass on the roof terrace of 4 apartments within a brand new development in the UK. The interesting part about this commission is that it was the architect involved in the design of the apartment complex who suggested to the property developers that they use artificial grass. After all, you can't use real grass easily on a roof garden - how would you cut it and where would you put the grass clippings?

Artificial grass offers roof garden owners the chance to have their own 'green' space with minimal maintenance. As the photgraph from the installation shows, artificial grass can make a roof garden an attractive, practical and pleasant area to enjoy.

View photographs from this artificial grass roof garden installation.

Astro turf, Astroturfing - What Does It All Mean?

We all know how words can have different meanings and that many words come into existence because of an invention or a product brand name - eg. hoover entered the English vocabulary as being another term for vacuum cleaner. Every industry, indeed every hobby, has its own vocabulary and glossary of terms - for example, if you're a fan of 9 ball pool, you'll understand the terms bank shot, balkline and carom.

As mentioned in a previous article, we have our own Artificial Grass Glossary so that people can better understand some of our terminology. That's where you'll see an explanation of "astro turf".

Written this way ... AstroTurf ... it refers to a registered trademark for a plastic grass product developed in the sixties and made famous by its installation at the Texas Astrodome.

Written this way ... astro turf ... it is now generally used and accepted as referring to any generic type of artificial grass product, irrespective of brand, etc. (The analogy here is with hoover and vacuum cleaner)

For more information go to the AstroTurf page on Wikipedia.

Having said that, there's also the term 'astroturfing' which has a completely different meaning. It's used (mainly in the USA) when referring to an advertising or PR campaign (personal, commercial or political) where the people behind the campaign want to disguise their efforts as being independent public reaction to something or someone. Essentially, faking popular 'grassroots' opinion. To convey the 'fake' and 'grass' elements from the idea, former US Senator Lloyd Bentsen found 'astroturfing' the ideal word when he first coined the phrase.

So if it's some artificial grass for your back garden that you're after, you'd be well advised NOT to talk about astroturfing or someone might think you're on a propaganda trail!