Open any webpage devoted to tips for selling your home and the first thing you’re likely to see is how important it is to make a good first impression. It’s as true with a custom built home as it is with a tract home. The curb appeal has to be strong and compelling enough to attract others to the home.
Stand Out
One way to make your home stand out in the sea of tan landscapes in Scottsdale is to devote an area of the front yard to turf. While xeriscaped yards save water by using drought-tolerant native plants, a bit of green is always welcome to the eye. A small patch of green grass does a lot to enhance curb appeal. It adds a pleasing contrast to the landscaping gravel and rocks, as well as trees, shrubs, and flowers.
Most people don’t consider their front yards as functional as the back in a custom built home, which makes using artificial turf in the front a sensible option. Today’s turf is indistinguishable from the real thing except at extremely close range. Many homeowners opt to include this in the backyard as well to give their kids and pets a soft surface to play on. Not only is turf desirable from a selling perspective, but it’s also environmentally sound.
Why Lawns Are So Uncommon in Scottsdale
People don’t have much lawn in Scottsdale because it takes so much water. Inch for inch, a swimming pool uses less water than a lawn does. Water evaporates from the surface of a swimming pool, just as it does from a blade of grass. If you were to add up all the surface area on the blades of grass in a lawn and compare it to the surface area of the pool, you’d find that there’s much more surface area in a patch of lawn.
Benefits of Artificial Turf
You can grow your own or use artificial turf for your custom built home. Dollar for dollar, artificial turf is the better investment because it never needs:
- Water
- Cutting
- Reseeding
- Weeding
- Aerating
- Feeding
You may even feel better during allergy season since grass is a major source of allergy-provoking pollen.
Recent advances in the technology make artificial lawns appear as real as those growing at the best-groomed golf courses. Some manufacturers create grass that looks like the commonly grown varieties, like Bermuda, fescue, and zoysia. It’s even more authentic when the manufacturer includes a layer that looks like thatch, that crumbly tan layer of grass clippings just above the roots.
How It’s Installed
Landscapers who install the turf cover the existing soil with a layer of aggregate. The installer may need to grade the area so that it drains quickly. Next, they’ll add a layer of crushed rock to prevent the turf from slumping over time.
Then it’s time to lay the turf and anchor it. The last step is adding crumbled rubber to the top of the grass and raking it in. This weighs the grass down and keeps the blades standing upright.
Design Ideas
The design team at Alair Homes will work with you on the exterior elevation of your custom built home, as well as integrating it with the ideas you and your landscape architect have for the front yard. Turf, whether you use the real thing or fake, blends well with the xeriscape materials and concepts.
Bottom Line
The swath of turf highlights the native plantings in the front yard, creating the impression of an oasis. When people drive up to your custom built home, they will find the sight intriguing and inviting, which are the precursors to forming a positive impression of your home.