Greener Grass For Younger Generation

As we've previously reported, play areas with an astro turf grass surface are becoming increasingly popular. The benefits of this latest generation of artificial grass are ideal for encouraging children to enjoy their playtime outdoors. Perhaps this is why more schools are now opting to have astro turf grass installed for their sports pitches.

Astro turf makes the ideal multi-use pitch where a variety of sports can be played including hockey and football. In the USA astro turf grass pitches have been popular with schools and colleges for many years. The US market was quick to recognise the advantages of this type of sports pitch, especially low maintenance and all year round availability.

Our factory has produced artificial grass for a variety of UK schools and colleges over the years, especially for Multi Games Use (MUGAS) and the level of enquiries received at the factory for this type of application seem to increase year upon year. Of course the specification of the grass for an astro turf type sports surface is different to the artificial grass we supply to our domestic customers for use in their gardens. It is our understanding of these factors that enables us to confidently supply the most suitable grass for each and every one of our customers.

So whether you are a head of school considering the idea of using astro turf grass or whether you just have a back patio that you would like to improve, feel free to contact our Customer Services Team on our UK Freephone for advice and guidance.

More reading on artificial grass for schools

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!

Fake Grass To Astro Turf: Artificial Grass Terminology

Grass is a word we all know. Simple, clear and unequivocal in meaning. As a manufacturer of artificial grass, however, we are very much aware that there is no, one, single accepted term that describes the product we manufacture.

For example, we have some customers who never use the term artificial grass but instead call it fake grass and some who prefer the phrase synthetic grass; there are even people who call it plastic grass or faux grass. As if all of this weren't enough to confuse the issue, there are those who don't even use the word 'grass' but prefer the word turf - hence we find ourselves referring to an artficial turf email request or a telephone call about synthetic turf. There are also people who, in a similar way to using the term hoover for a vaccuum cleaner, use the term astro turf. Already in this one paragraph we have used no less than 8 different sets of terminology - and all to refer to the same thing!

All of this of course is at the consumer end of the spectrum and there's an entirely different set of terms used on the production line such as we have in our artificial grass factory here in the UK. On any given day you will hear a range of terms bandied about amongst our technicians - words that most people will never have heard of - such as creel, collector board, yarn sheet, dtex and fibrillation.

As the only UK artificial grass manufacturer selling direct to consumers, we enjoy a unique position of authority when it comes to understanding and explaining artificial grass terminology. This has enabled us to write our own artificial grass glossary which brings together both everyday and manufacturing terms. Hopefully it will benefit both our customers' understanding of artificial grass and also that of our growing network of distributors. Apart from that you never know, you might get asked at the next local pub quiz what a creel is!