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artificial grass might be the go!

I saw some good looking stuff at Costco in the states last year, I am not sure if they sell it in Japan though.

Crushed stones are alright (we have some) but it is nice to have grass for the color.

 

Yes they have the fake grass here I bought some to do my dogs runs with it looks quite good and makes for a soft place for the dogs to lay without getting muddy.

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Actually.....recently I gave up trying to keep the growth in check. So..I raked everything level and flat and layed down some black underlay and topped it all with a couple a yards of "jari" gravel..

Interested to see some of this artificial grass.

I suppose the initial response is 'fake grass'?!?! Masaka! But that's just because of what we're programmed with.

If it looks good, and grass here is a mad pain to keep and never really looks that great, can't see why it shouldn't be a decent option if not the best one.

Is it expensive?

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Just been looking around. As you might expect there's el cheapo which is crap and astroturf-like, but there's a higher end that looks much more realistic and is more expensive.

The one I am looking at here is Takasho maker and seems to cost 230,000 yen for 20sqm. Thats catalogue price so no doubt you can get it with a chunk chopped off.

I certainly would want the best quality if I did this that's for sure.

Interesting.

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Then the good ones are going to cost a fair whack but unlike real grass it cant die off and doesnt need maintenance I reckon the more expensive would be good to go for if you go down that route.

If you do I will be interested to see how it looks as I will need to do something with my back garden once spring arrives and all the snow melts and the false grass may be an option for me too.

 

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Dont know really everyone I talk too gives a different figure but a normal year seems that a typical snowvfall is between 30-50cm per storm and it will snow like that several times throughout winter. 100cm per time is apparently not so unusual and it snow like that every few years here but 200cm in one storm is really rare.

So obviously what we have this year is exceptional.

I guess as this is my first year to live here so I dont hsve first hand experience of how much it snows.

But i see a lot of people have snow blowers and plows so I guess it must snow a reasoble amount.

 

Yaanashi as a whole has been getting heavier and more snow over these past 3-4 years anyway so I guess I will see how this area fairs for snow over the coming years.

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That grass looks good but will it keep looking like that after a year or two of rain, snow etc.

I assume it is put down in strips or squares and then joined?

Maybe good to ask or find out if it will pull apart or if the ground underneath can become satuated and course the surface to become uneven or bumpy if you go down that route.

 

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As part of our garden plan, we're having an awning put outside our to-be patio area.

I have been able to find a company online offering it at 50% off the catalogue price - which is a lot of cash when it's a fairly expensive buy. One of the companies we spoke to about putting together a garden quoted me 90% of the list price. He would not move on that and wanted a chunk to install it too.

I have found the quotes we got to to be unreasonably expensive, so I'm really thinking of putting things together bit by bit and organising it myself even though I have no experience.

Just hate that feeling of being overcharged.

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I wonder that too. Though they kind of lose you quickly when they give you crazy over-inflated numbers that are borderline insulting.

 

You'd think they would be happy to get a decent size job and want the business so be a bit flexible. Not asking them to take a loss, just don't rip off my arm.

 

I am due to get our quotation at long last today or tomorrow. We'll see if he has taken in that there'll be no accepting silly numbers.

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That roll looks just the job for the showcase in the butcher's. Give me some of your finest pork chops sir, on the bone!

 

Our lawn was put in from seed by our garden man with minimal effort, but it was lovely for the two years I managed to keep it going. That was with only 2cm of sand to grow in and impenetrable compacted (i.e., with a machine) gravel underneath. I reckon it can't be that difficult to maintain one if it goes in properly in the first place. In Hakuba, a few pensions and ordinary folks houses in the bessou-chi have very nice lawns. Ours died when we were away for a week when my youngest was born. It was the last week of July and it was sunny every single day. I came back and the non-shaded bits were completely dead. Watering them just speeded up the rotting.

 

The lawn we had was Kentucky Bluegrass. Bust out the fiddle and the banjo! It's hard to tell here with full sun on it, but it was a deep blue green, much darker than most British lawns.

 

1_DSC_3734.jpg

 

I don't know anything about artificial grass, but I do know that it's not a case of choosing between a lawn (fake or real) and hard landscaping. There are loads of other ground covers you can use. Any gardener taking money off people should be able to suggest a number of alternatives. It shouldn't take a gaijin to suggest the most obvious Japanese one.

 

 

Kokedera.jpg

 

 

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Hmm the mossy look in your photo there (for want of a better word) wouldn't fit our ideas, not sure I like that.

 

Ours died when we were away for a week when my youngest was born.

 

This is one of the big concerns of real grass. Apart from that fact it's a lot of work, and often doesn't seem to look amazing, there will be times when we won't be there. And it will probably die. Obviously not good!

 

 

 

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Presumably you need to water a lawn a lot in the hot months.

The cost of that alone must be an eye-opener.

And if you leave it for a week and it will die.

It sounds like way too much faffing and fannying about to me, especially when the results don't seem particularly great. (Though that photo you posted looks nice Mr Wiggles).

Not sure about artificial, there's this built in response that instantly says it's rubbish but that's just clocked in to some Astroturf image from way back, no doubt it is much better now.

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OK worst fears imagined.

 

Got the quotation. Very expensive.

 

On trying to get details squeezed out, turns out I am being told that the bricklayer does on average 45 bricks in one day.

These are normal bricks.

The reason it is that is because apparently there's cement, base and measuring to do too... who'd have thought such a thing!

 

:grandpa:

 

I just gave him a clear (but controlled) piece of my mind, I think he was as shocked as I was pissed off.

He's due to come on Thursday to discuss it - I told him that unless there's some real changes, this will not be happening.

Problem is, even if they come back with a largely adjusted quote, I've still got some pissed off lingering in the background.

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