How to Make Your Lawn High-Tech

When you think of cutting-edge home technology, you rarely think of your lawn. In fact, compared to the gadgets and gizmos inside your home, your entire yard might seem antiquated and out of date.

Lawns first emerged as elements of a residential landscape when the wealthiest homeowners flaunted their affluence by leaving a portion of their property fallow, growing only grass.

As the middle class rose throughout the 20th century, more and more homes integrated lawns, but the look and function of this landscape feature has hardly changed in the last 50 years.

If modern and high-tech is your aesthetic, have no fear — there are ways to bring your lawn into the 21st century.

Robot Mowing

Undoubtedly the most exciting feature for high-tech lawns is the robot lawn mower. The robot mower automatically trims your lawn, so you can relax on your porch instead of wasting a day doing battle with your lawn.

These devices work much like autonomous cars; they employ laser or radar sensors to identify obstacles and create maps of your yard. Then, the mower carves a random path around your lawn, mowing the grass to the proper height.

Typically, homeowners using robot mowers do need to install boundaries around their lawns, so mowers don’t attempt to mow garden beds, gravel or hardscaping.

However, this takes much less time than dragging the mower out yourself. Plus, most robot lawn mowers are smart, meaning you can connect them to your smartphone or computer for fine-tuned control over blade height, run time and more.

While there are many robot lawn mowers on the market, most of them are quite expensive. You can purchase a brand-new self-propelled lawn mower (the standard mower) for between $250 and $500, but robot lawn mowers have costs closer to $3,000.

Undoubtedly, as the tech becomes more common, prices will drop, but if you are desperate for a smart, autonomous lawn mower, you will pay a high price.

Advanced Lawn Care

Before you even think about investing in high-tech gadgets and gizmos for your lawn, your priority should be to get your lawn as healthy as possible.

Introducing a potentially disruptive piece of tech, like a robot lawn mower, can be disastrous if your lawn isn’t already lush and green.

Fortunately, you don’t need expensive devices to give your lawn advanced care. Instead, what you need is a correct care schedule, effective products and tools and total commitment to increasing your lawn’s health.

A good first step is to get in contact with a trustworthy, professional lawn service to point you in the right direction.

After searching the web for “lawn care near me,” you should ask lawn experts about your soil quality and composition, your lawn variety and other factors that affect lawn health, like local pests and climate.

You should also consider what kind of lawn care you want: traditional or green. Traditional lawn care, which relies on synthetic chemicals for fertilizer as well as control of pests and weeds, is inarguably more effective at creating a thick, verdant lawn fast.

However, as eco-friendliness increases in popularity, more green products reach the market that produce notable results. Because environmentalism seems to be the way of the future, it might be prudent to begin exposing yourself to sustainable practices and materials now.

Future Grass

Synthetic turf might seem like something that belongs on indoor sports fields, but it is making its way into more and more residential properties.

The benefits of fake grass should be obvious: It looks green 27/7/365 without the need for water, fertilizer, seeding, mowing or any other type of care.

Plus, you can acquire fake grass that looks remarkably realistic, with variations in color, height and texture that mimics true turf. If you are tired of the maintenance required of your current lawn, you might consider investing in the technological wonder that is synthetic turf.

However, before you get too excited, you should know that there are downsides to fake grass — just as there are limitations or weaknesses with every step toward the future. For one, synthetic grass requires a sky-high initial investment; the convincing varieties that look like real grass can cost as much as $20 per square foot.

Additionally, fake grass gets uncomfortably hot in the sun, meaning during spring and summer, when you are most wanting to use your lawn, you might find it scorching and unworkable.

Finally, even the highest-quality fake grass gets old. Unlike real grass, which regrows swiftly to fill holes and sparse spots, synthetic turf needs to be replaced or the illusion is shattered.

The future is coming — even for your lawn. The sooner you adapt to emerging tools and practices for lawn care, the happier you will be with how your lawn looks.