Last Updated on February 20, 2025 by Brian Beck
When I first started my business back in 2000 there was a lot more grass per capita in Colorado Springs. The installation of turf and the maintenance of it has declined for several reasons, economical, environmental, climate controversy, water price and availability, frustration and different appreciations for landscape concepts. The biggest reason is a perceived “escape” from the cost of water. While there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding how to manage a lawn without getting screwed. One point that I would like to call attention to however is the water cycle. As a city grows with it comes more things that absorb heat such as pavement, roads, buildings and cars. Also to add to those heat generating things include artificial turf and rocks, two things that people run to to escape having to maintain a lawn. The problem with these two things are that they absorb a lot of heat. If you have ever been on a plastic lawn in the summer you will know that you cannot let your kids or dogs out on it until you cool it off with the irrigation system or a hose. Surface temperatures can exceed 140°, enough to burn little feet and cause heat fatigue. Rock on the other hand are reserved for people that truly hate grass. Once down you can never use the space for recreational purposes. Have you ever played football on rock? Wall to wall rock like a bad shag carpet in a 1970’s B-grade movie not only looks like a Martian landscape but it is also a massive heat bank and is a very efficient weed magnet. Rock is anything but maintenance free. Both choices are very expensive and take years to recoup from the financial shock. I can’t help you if you hate living things but I can show someone how to reduce the waste in a lawn if that is one’s motivating reason for turning to the darkside. Now getting back to the water cycle, when you increase heat you diminish the likelihood for rain clouds to form as you disrupt this process. This oversight contributes to a hotter urban area that helps to drive desertification and changing the landscape for the worse. What we need is more trees and grass not less. We can solve the problems of the inefficiency but we cannot have a well functioning water cycle by undermining it. There is value in plant life and wen you fix the problems in the soil you can make it much easier and more affordable to have a natural landscape.
