Tell me more ×
Gardening & Landscaping Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for gardeners and landscapers. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 3 down vote favorite

There's a joke that in the army when the grass has any color but green it is painted so that it has "the right" color.

Now I open Google and search for "painting grass" and there're numerous results for different grass painting solutions. Looks like the joke is not really a joke, but I'd rather check before coming to conclusions.

Do solutions for painting grass green really exist or is it just a mass joke?

share|improve this question
painting grass is incredibly common. Watch an american football game. many of those games are played on fields with real grass. Not only are the lines painted, but the end zones are often stenciled with words and logos then painted the rest of the way. – wax eagle♦ Sep 14 '12 at 14:39
@wax eagle: I don't mean placing marks on the grass, I mean painting all the grass green for the sake of making it green. – sharptooth Sep 14 '12 at 15:06

3 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

It's for real, and it's not just a new notion. Foreclosures and drought probably have something to do with just how trendy it is right now.

The first link below is to a July 2012 article that appeared in Business Insider. The second is to the website of a group formed in San Antonio due to "overwhelming foreclosures and drought."

"The US Drought Is So Bad People Are Painting Their Lawns Green"

"Texas Green Grass, Inc."

If you Google for "paint grass green" you'll find a host of solutions.

share|improve this answer
up vote 3 down vote

Well, goodness me, you learn something every day, what will they think of next.

Just checked this out online and you're right, you can spray paint your lawn green. There appear to be two types of products available, one dye and one pigment based. The latter professes to last a lot longer than the dye one. Trying to find out quite what ingredients are present isn't easy - they claim its good for the environment, but this appears to be simply because you will/may water your lawn less to keep it green. I'd argue that all the paint will do, if you water less, is conceal the fact that your lawn is dying/dead and may not recover at all with no water in hot parts of the world. Certainly ammonia seems a large component. The pigment based one, exposed to 'thermal conditions' (whatever that means - sun?) will give off Co2, so hardly good for the environment.

Both products carry warnings regarding eye, skin and breathing exposure, so seems you need a bio hazard suit to use the stuff, really, and it should be done on a windless day when the blades of grass are completely dry. The pigment based one seems to have been originally approved for professional rather than amateur use.

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

My neighbor had this done several summers ago. When our grass was dormant and brown, theirs was green. When our grass turned green again, theirs was clearly a different shade of green than anyone elses, but I wouldn't say it was immediately obvious that the green wasn't natural. I had never heard of it before then, either. I do wonder what the enviornmental ramifications are.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.