Is this cropping up in your area? We've had two recently completed projects (carwash and public cemetery entrance) make it to the newspaper. The city allowed these two projects in order to determine if the beautification aspect and saving of water is something they want to allow in their codes. I'll be watching them to see how they weather but right now they don't look too bad with longer "grass blades." These projects also have trees in them which still require irrigation but the rest of it is supposed to be maintenance free. One thing I do notice is that the carwash area is slightly hilled and could become a target for graffitti.
That stuff is just going to get vandalized and torn apart...If not by kids, then by angry lawn care companys Thats my opinion at least... Remember when subsurface turf drip was the future? I don't hear much about that either.
I know of some towns that have put in artificial turf athletic fields, because the old grass fields were being worn out by overuse. http://www.foreverfields.com/
Until last year our district had only one stadium that served three high schools and one community college. Each year after all the football/soccer/track/band usage it was wiped out and required complete resodding in the late spring. With the addition of a fourth high school three years ago there were two proposals: (1) install artificial athletic turf on the existing stadium, or (2) build a new stadium. They opted to build a new stadium to take the pressure off but also moved JV and Frosh games from the HS sites to both stadiums. Now BOTH stadiums need resodding between the side lines and 15 yard lines each spring.
I believe that was PAT (prescription athletic turf) developed by Purdue or some other university in the midwest. Watered by capillary action at the bottom of the root zone. By reversing the pumps the perforated irrigation lines could then be used as "suction drainage" when too much rain occurred, thus keeping the field in "perfect" balance. A typical irrigation system was still installed as "backup" in the event the PAT didn't work.
A small strip of artificial turf was installed in the median of one of the roads nearby where I live. It survived for almost a year but has just recently been dug up for one reason or another. People typically laughed at the idea, but at least it stayed more green than the junipers that were planted at the same place.
