Child Friendly Gardens

Child friendly gardens mean different things to different people – as you’d expect! Now that we’re at the end of National Children’s Gardening Week, NCGW, there’s time to sit back, take stock and decide whether your own garden could do with a bit of a re-think.

A few pertinent questions to get those grey cells working (do grab a cup of tea first if that helps). There are four main options: –

1. Would you like to re-design your whole garden so that the focus is on the children?
2. Perhaps the plan is to have your garden re-designed to accommodate lots of child-friendly elements but still be usable by the rest of the family?
3. Maybe you’d just like to have part of the garden re-designed as a child play area?
4. Or do you need help in finding a bit of space and knowledge to ‘do’ gardening with your children at the weekend?

Child Friendly Gardens – Ideas from this year’s Chelsea Flower Show

Ignoring budget, but working with the garden you have, do you have an ideal child friendly garden in mind?

For example:

Perhaps you watch RHS Chelsea Flower Show on TV and saw the RHS Back to Nature Garden, co-designed by the Duchess of Cambridge with children in mind? You may have thought it looked a great place for adventure games (and I certainly felt tempted to play when I was walking through it!). But is your garden large enough for a space like this and do you know how to maintain it?

Or perhaps you loved the bright colours of the Montessori Garden? An appealing space for many younger children, with cartoon style animal statues and outdoor cushions to flop on. It offered a space to grow food, which might increase its appeal as a style to you, the parent. Perhaps it gives you the nudge you need to start growing fruit and vegetables?

Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men (above) were waving at children from the National Chrysanthemum Society stand in the Great Pavilion. See also last weeks blog RHS Chelsea 2019, Plant Heritage, Children’s Gardens, Glorious Flowers

Creating Child Friendly Gardens – What else do we need to consider?

Now you’re in the mood, lets sort out some practicalities: –

⦁ How large is your garden?
⦁ What ages are your children?
⦁ Who else uses the garden – parents, for example, what are their needs?
⦁ Do you have a dog, cats, rabbit, other pets who need space too?
⦁ Are there any special requirements such as wheelchair access?
⦁ Do you live in a Conservation Area or with other possible restrictions on what you could do?
⦁ How long do you expect to stay in your current house and garden?
⦁ What is your budget?

As a Garden Designer, there are quite a few more questions I’d need answering, but these are sufficient to start you thinking along the right lines. A good designer will help you to sort through your wish list and find the priorities. Even with 10 acres and a million pounds, it’s still the process to work through for the finished garden to be successful for you as a family.

It may be that you start out thinking you’ll create the perfect play space for your toddler, without fully thinking through that the toddler will be at nursery school before you realise it. Families change – one child and a cat may become two children, one at school, a cat and a dog. Its one reason that garden designers ask so many questions – we want to be sure the garden is flexible enough to meet your current needs and grow with your children.

Elements of Child Friendly Gardens

There is no one definitive list for what should be included. Your children’s ages, size of garden, and preferred style have a bearing on your choice. These are just a few thoughts to give you an idea of how the children’s area could be configured.

Learning to Grow

One thing I would always include, whatever the child’s age, is a space to grow edible plants. For a toddler, you may need to bring in some strawberry plant with nearly ripe strawberries, so they don’t have to wait too long to eat them. But you could also grow some micro salad leaves and a redcurrant bush.

And so long as they’re not in the way of cricket balls and footballs, a row of espalier fruit trees would make a practical, edible barrier between the children’s garden and the rest of the garden. In a small garden this would be a good use of space. Currant bushes and raspberries trained along wires would also work if you preferred soft fruit to top fruit.

Non-poisonous Planting

Self-evident for younger children but remember older children and teenagers may rub against plants which cause rashes. There are so many plants which fall under the heading ‘toxic’ that you could become really anxious about letting your children in to the garden at all! But for many of them, small amounts wouldn’t cause a major problem.

Planting schemes should reflect the ages / inquisitiveness of your offspring. Even spiky and thorny plants – roses for example! – may need to be grown in other areas of the garden. If in doubt, ask for a consultancy visit, from Plews, Marie with her London Garden Consultants hat on, or another reputable horticulturalist / member of the PGCA.

Incorporating Plants as Part of the Scheme

Here I’m thinking of plants that create a play area. For example, willow tunnels and willow domes. Bean tepees would be a temporary and edible alternative if you don’t have room for, or a damp area for, a willow tunnel. Have you already got a small climbing frame that your children used as toddlers? This can be used as a support for climbing plants to create a den for older children.

A treehouse or platform can offer endless fun when your children are old enough to climb up. They can have a long life – teenagers often like the semi privacy offered halfway up a tree. A climbing net offers an alternative route up to a ladder. Attaching a pulley and bucket to the treehouse so that supplies can be pulled up is fun too.

If you have enough space, why not add a maze? A turf maze is simple but allows cheating (!) A herb hedge around the paths would encourage sticking to the route whilst low enough to prevent any ‘I’m lost’ panics. There are all sorts of plants you could use to create hedges and different sizes of maze.

On a simpler note, including one or more ‘secret paths’ through the borders is always popular. A sensory path is a variant of this, with different surfaces contained within / along it. For example, you could use lawn chamomile, cut logs on their sides, pebbles.

Other Play Structures

With the plants sorted, what about other structures? Ignoring ready made play equipment, what could you recycle?

Tyres are incredibly useful – which is just as well, given how long they take to rot down. They make a small sandpit, or series of sandpits. Turned on their sides, a few tyres lined up create an open tunnel effect for climbing through. And of course, they can also be used as raised beds for children to garden in.

Recycled rubber tyre chippings are good to cover a play area where a soft surface is required. They have the advantage of not turning into a fox or cat toilet, unlike bark chippings often do. If you want to liven up your children’s play area, they come in a range of colours.

Are the kids driving you up the wall? Then give them a climbing wall! If you have a garden on different levels, you could incorporate a climbing wall and slide into the slope. Terrace the gap between and grow child tolerant plants (just in case they take that route for a change).

Play Items

A mix of home-made, recycled and purchased items works best for most children and families. For example: –

Outdoor blackboard
Hopscotch tiles
Outdoor chess / noughts & crosses
Music fence – old cutlery and pans hanging from a wire; plastic plant pots for drums
Swings – wooden, rubber tyre
Miniature canal system – lots of water play even when it’s too cold for the paddling pool

What next?

For more ideas on having fun with your children in the garden, see photo of my article in Families South East magazine.

Designing child friendly gardens can be such fun! If we consider 2019’s Chelsea Flower Show the style varies from shady woodland to bright urban spaces. And it is about what suits you as well as your children. If you’re not going to stay long in the house, it may be better to come up with ideas that suit your children but are easily adapted when you leave.

For those of you near to London, you may like to explore Kew Gardens new children’s garden. It’s the size of 40 tennis courts so has room for lots of exploring and playing! You’ll need to book a time slot when you get to Kew.

If you’d like a child-friendly Garden Design – be that a total revamp or a few tweaks, do get in touch with us at Plews. Hopefully we’ve shown you above that we have plenty of ideas and are aware of the practicalities too.