A garden is an important place when you have kids. It is where they can run around having water fights in the summer, learn to ride their first bikes, and dig up worms and creepy crawlies galore! Of course for your family to get as much out of the garden as possible it needs to be child-friendly, something you can learn more about in the post below.
Play areas
A major way that many people make their garden more child-friendly is to include specific play areas and items. This may take the form of climbing frames, slides, or swings. All things that you can buy ready made to install or do yourself if you are DIY savvy.
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Another great play area feature to install in the garden for the little ones is a sand pit. A place that they can build castles and drive their Tonka trucks through. Just remember to make one with a lid or that is raised so there are no nasty surprises in their left by the neighbourhood cat!
Encourage creative play with a sandpit.
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A Wendy house or treehouse is another great suggestion to make your outside space more appealing to the kids. Wendy houses are probably a bit easier to do as they often come ready assembled and you just need to position them.
However, tree houses need to be customised for the particular location that they are in. You can even get professional companies that will build and install these for you. Although it’s not the cheapest way of doing it.
Safety and protection
Another issue that you need to have a handle on in a child-friendly garden is safety and protection. That means you need to consider things such as providing shade for their kids to play in when it’s hot. Something that planting a podocarpus hedge can help with. You also need to be sure that the boundaries around the edge of the garden are secure so the kids can’t get out when they are adventuring, and unwanted visitors can’t get in.
Fruit and vegetables
Providing a space where the little ones can learn to grow and tend their own fruit and vegetables is a wonderful suggestion for a child-friendly garden. After all, it’s a fun activity that you can do together as a family. It also teaches the kids were real food comes from and sets them up with the skills and experience to continue to grow their own later on in life.
Wildlife habitats
A suggestion that many kids will love too is to get them involved in creating some habitats in the outside space that are specifically geared toward wildlife.
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You could include an insect hotel, or plant flowers such as butterfly bush and lavender that bees love, so attracting them to the garden. You could even follow a tutorial like the one at https://www.youtube.com and build a hedgehog house. Something that will help the little ones learn about these creates and hopefully spark an interest in helping to preserve ecosystems and animals in the future as well.