Artificial turf in Applewood, CO, for a backyard putting green among old trees.

Useful putting lines come before extra cups.

Choose the distances you want to work on and whether chipping matters to you. A green near the patio may get more use than a larger one at the far end of the yard. Leave walking room around it and keep beds or other garden features that you enjoy.

Plan around what has been there for years.

On a tree-lined Applewood property, mark mature trees, roots and irrigation before discussing preparation. Avoid assuming that an open patch above ground is clear for excavation below it. Point out settled paving or known wet areas as well.

If reducing lawn irrigation is part of your decision, check the provider on your bill and compare your own costs. Allow for turf cleaning, especially for pets, and confirm any rebate eligibility before counting it in the budget.

A golf course inside Applewood, and room for a green at home.

Applewood has its own course. Applewood Golf Course, at 14001 W. 32nd Ave, is a par-71 layout under the foothills that has been open since the 1960s, managed by KemperSports and open daily from 6 a.m. to sunset (Applewood Golf Course). It's associated with the Prospect Recreation and Park District.

Rolling Hills Country Club, a private club, sits immediately west in Golden, and Fossil Trace Golf Club, the City of Golden's course at 3050 Illinois St, opened in 2003 (Fossil Trace Golf Club).

With a course this close, a backyard green earns its space: several holes, contour to read, and a collar of longer turf for chipping. On a flat Applewood lot it goes down without the cut-and-fill a slope would need.

Water is billed in three tiers now, and the top one is $11 a thousand gallons.

Applewood's water comes from Consolidated Mutual Water Company, a customer-owned utility serving since 1926 across about 24 square miles and some 100,000 people, through about 400 miles of pipe in parts of Lakewood, Wheat Ridge and unincorporated central Jefferson County. Applewood is named on its service map, where Lakewood and Wheat Ridge appear only in part (Consolidated Mutual Water). A neighbor in Wheat Ridge or Lakewood has to check the name on the bill before copying anyone's watering rules. In Applewood that part is already settled.

East Pleasant View, the small unincorporated pocket between Golden and Lakewood just south of Applewood, is unincorporated Jefferson County too. Its water doesn't come straight from Consolidated Mutual, though: the Pleasant View Water and Sanitation District, a roughly four-square-mile district, buys water through Consolidated Mutual under a contract running since 1987 and carries local sewage on to Metro Water Recovery for treatment (Pleasant View Water and Sanitation District). Ask the district what tier pricing and drought-stage rules apply to an East Pleasant View account, and whether Jefferson County's floodplain and land-disturbance rules below cover the address too.

Its homepage says that, because of drought, allowed irrigation ends on 1 October 2026. Moderate-to-severe drought, below-normal snowpack and low reservoirs are behind the call, and a Drought Management Plan sets the rules (Consolidated Mutual Water).

That plan reached the bill first. Since 1 June 2026 Consolidated has billed monthly in three tiers, and on the standard one-ERU allotment they run $5.60 per thousand gallons for the first 5,000, $8.00 from 5,001 to 15,000, and $11.00 above 15,000 — each step costing more, the company says, “to promote conservation and to support the additional load on our water system” (Consolidated Mutual Water). Your own tier lines move with the shares attached to your tap, so ask Consolidated how many you hold. Turf drinks none of it.

As of September 2026 the company's published drought response puts it in Drought Stage Orange, the second of five steps that run Yellow, Orange, Red, Brown, Black. Orange targets a 25% cut and caps irrigation at two days a week, with no outdoor watering between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on any day; vegetables, flowers, trees and shrubs may still be hand-watered with a shut-off nozzle, or dripped, on any day inside those hours (Consolidated Mutual Water). Consolidated buys wholesale from Denver Water and has to align with its restrictions, and it says both pricing and enforcement may change again if conditions worsen.

Flat terrace ground over Front Range clay.

Applewood sits on flat to gently sloping Clear Creek terrace deposits east of South Table Mountain, with none of the hogback or steep bedrock found farther south. The clay under it is still Front Range clay, which the Colorado Geological Survey calls Colorado's most significant geologic hazard and blames for more property damage than any other natural hazard (Colorado Geological Survey).

So the base decides the rest. On a flat, open yard the turf itself goes down in wide pieces with fewer seams; what takes the time is underneath, getting the depth and the fall right for whatever the ground turns out to be when it is opened.