Planning Play Areas Into Your Landscaping

An outdoor play area should be planned into the landscape of every home with children. For those with children, making an outdoor play area part of the landscaping is always a good idea: the children are happy with a place to play, parents are happy because they know the kids are safe, and it keeps the kids out of the rest of the garden. In fact, you may find that if you provide a very attractive spot, all the neighborhood kids will end up at your place, which can be a mixed blessing. It’s generally quite simple to design a garden plan with at least a small amount of play area for the younger folks in the family.

For very small children, the area needs to be close to the house so the children can be closely supervised, but not feel too restrained. A spot that can be seen from several areas of the house such as a kitchen window is good. While there are a lot of manmade toys that can be placed in a play area, young kids will often prefer to think up their own games using nothing more than sticks, rocks, and other natural materials. A simple sandbox (covered when not in use, to keep out neighborhood pets) will keep small children happy for hours, especially if there is a source of water nearby. Add some simple elements like stones to the sandbox. (When the kids are all grown up, you can turn the sandboxes into a raised garden beds.) An old log makes a good climbing frame, as can quite a small tree, especially if it has strong branches not too far from the ground.

Older kids prefer to play a little further away from the house. However, they still need a visible safe spot designed into the front or backyard landscape design where they can play. Older kids still like to use their imaginations so hold off a bit before giving them a treehouse. Start simply, perhaps with some timber steps nailed to a tall tree or a rope ladder for climbing into the branches. Then the tree can be a house, a plane or a pirate ship, as the occasion demands.

A patch of grass in the garden area can be great for everyday play – soft enough to fall down on and possibly even long enough to hide in. If this doesn’t fit the rest of your landscaping plans, consider using bark chunks or chips as a surface cushion under play equipment which can help ease the pain of those falls and tumbles that are bound to happen.

A hard concrete patch will also be invaluable as the children get older. Riding a bike, rollerblading, playing jacks, jumping rope, and a lot of other childhood games will be learned right at this spot. And who knows. They may even take up gardening if you give the kids a sunny spot of their very own.