Guests who walk into the backyard of Sharon O’Malley Burg’s Rogers Ranch home often comment on how crisp and clean it looks. That’s because about five years ago, she and her husband, a retired Air Force major general, replaced what had been a weedy, patchy lawn with a blanket of emerald green artificial turf — part of it a putting green.
“It changed our relationship with the backyard,” said O’Malley Burg, who runs an information technology and cyberconsulting firm. “We like to entertain, and the artificial turf makes the yard look like a showcase.”
With the city already in Stage 2 water restrictions and climate experts calling for more long-term droughts, many homeowners may be wondering if now’s the time to replace their water-hogging lawns with artificial turf — and whether it’s worth the high cost to do so.
In San Antonio, for example, synthetic grass costs between $7 to $13 per square foot, depending on the quality of the turf, according Justin Hale, owner of Amazing Turf & Lawn.
It cost O’Malley Burg and her husband about $58,000 for that crisp and clean look, which included the design, removal of the existing growth and site preparation, some decorative stone and about 3,800 square feet of turf.
