Landscaping Heavyweight Showdown: Grass Vs. Turf

As Bakersfield’s landscape supply experts, Kern Turf Supply understands that grass is the gold standard in ground coverings in our great nation. There’s nothing more tempting on a summer day than running your bare feet through a cool and cushy bed of good old, natural grass. However, synthetic turf is here to challenge the rule of natural grass with its low-maintenance nature and perpetual “greenness.”

So who wins in the battle between grass and turf? We’ll find out.

The Case for Grass

Grass is classic and original—the founding father of ground coverings. It’s soft, lush, and welcoming, and it’s certainly better than sitting in a pile of dirt. With natural grass, you’ll always have a nice spot to read books, run through the sprinkler, let your dog (or children) run around, and soak up the sun. Plus, your natural grass acts as a ground-level climate control system, ensuring that every nap on your natural lawn is as cool as the other side of the pillow.

But grass isn’t just around to keep you comfortable—it helps the environment around you as well. Certain types of natural grass are excellent erosion control plants, using their dense root systems to stabilize riversides, hillsides, and other areas prone to erosion. Erosion control is a great asset to yard safety for pets and children, as well as roadside safety—erosion control turf grasses stabilize roadside areas that would otherwise allow rocky debris to fall onto the road by reducing and controlling the flow of runoff.

Finally, dense, turf-like lawns act as filters for contaminated runoff water, catching and trapping toxins before the runoff heads underground to enter the water table.

With all of these benefits to your comfort and the environment (and your wallet), grass is the obvious winner, right? Not if you ask synthetic turf.

The Case for Synthetic Turf

Natural grass is great, sure—but what happens if you use your patch of grass more than a few days a week? Natural grass can’t take a beating like synthetic turf can. High foot traffic, combined with hot and sunny California summer weather, will leave your natural grass lawn looking dry and crunchy, and will promote the development of dreaded bare patches—also known as lawn “bald spots.”

With synthetic turf, you have a lifelong ground covering solution that can handle any amount of foot traffic, heat, or sunlight, and you don’t even have to water it! In a state like California, every ounce of water is precious—the more you can avoid using water on lawn care, the better. Plus, you won’t have to spend money or deal with the environmental effects of pesticides.

Synthetic turf is great for commercial outdoor spaces as well, particularly when it comes to sports fields. Official FIFA-quality synthetic turf can handle 3,000 hours (or 2,000 soccer matches) worth of foot traffic without any maintenance—so your synthetic turf will certainly be able to handle youth soccer matches for years to come. When natural grass becomes an unusable sporting surface due to mud and potholes caused by rainfall, you synthetic turf will be just fine, ready to handle the highest levels of sporting events. You’ll be able to use the turf for community events during the offseason, too—making it a material that can work for you 24/7/365.

And the Winner Is…

Ultimately, there is no true winner in the battle between natural grass and synthetic turf. It all depends on how you plan to use your outdoor space.

If you’re unsure about what to choose in the battle between grass and turf, it’s time to pay a visit to the landscape supply experts at Kern Turf Supply. We’re happy to help you decide on the right kind of ground covering for your property, and give you the tips your need for the best maintenance of your new grass or turf.

To get started, request more information about our products, or stop by one of our Bakersfield supply stores today!