Grass act taking root.

Jeff Mitnick, president of JM Synthetic Grass Surfacing, likes to tell the story of a one client, the management company for an apartment complex, which used his company's product to fill in areas where grass had never been able to grow.

"It was during the time of a drought alert, when municipalities throughout the northeast were threatening to fine businesses, apartment owners and homeowners for watering their lawns," said Mitnick, whose company is based in Rutherford, NJ.

"My client's lawn looked so good using our grass that the management at a building in the same town ratted them out to the authorities. That just assumed that the first guy must have been watering his lawn."

JM Synthetic Grass is a polyethylene substitute that is now routinely used by residential and commercial businesses and municipalities. This includes schools, daycare centers, housing developments, municipalities and commercial areas around fast food places, banks, hotels, and gas stations. It's been used for 10,000 s/f condominium complexes and 200 s/f gazebos.

The new type of synthetic grass is generations removed from Astroturf [TM], the first artificial replacement for grass, which resembled carpet. This looks and feels like natural blades of grass.

For some of its commercial installations, the company installs a customized application to dirt, asphalt, blacktop, cement surfaces, or even rooftops.

The installation is done with a machine that looks like a street sweeper and is usually completed within two days, to be a craft.

JM Synthetic Grass can be applied to virtually any surface. Since the grass has its own drainage system, there is never a problem with flooding.

A weed barrier eliminates the possibility of any undesirable growth. The synthetic grass can even be custom-designed to allow for plants or flowers.