James Burke (pictured here) explores an artificial garden that contains synthetic grass and plants made from polypropylene. Instead of fly spray, how about a polish? Forget the lawn-mower ...

"We'd never been able to maintain it and spent a fortune on grass seeds. We even put new turf down once. Nothing we did made it look nice." Then she had some artificial grass installed.

straw and maize stalks Grass, straw and maize stalks could provide alternatives to plastic packaging, scientists have said. Bangor University researchers are working with leftover farming ...