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Your guide to creating a child-friendly garden

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Mika, Staff Writer

Tuesday, 16 February 2021

Everyone dreams of a garden that they can enjoy with their family, but it can be a hard balance creating a garden that both adults and children can enjoy. However, with some careful planning and selective zoning, you can achieve a garden which is perfect for both adults and children alike.

For the ultimate child-friendly garden, we’d recommend you hire a local landscape designer on Bark to help you with planning and creating your child-friendly garden. Their experience will be invaluable when it comes to giving you tips and advice.

Here are our top tips for designing a child-friendly garden.

Create a designated play area

Cordoning off an area of your garden as a play area will give your children their own personal space to enjoy, whilst the rest of your garden remains your own. This can also help to protect your plants and shrubs from potential damage caused by toys.

You can define the play area from the rest of the garden using a small picket fence, raised sleepers or even car tyres. For the surfacing of the play area, you can choose artificial grass, bark chippings, sand or rubber chippings – the options are endless.

Think about your choice of plants

Your children will love to help you to choose plants and colourful flowers, and aromatic herbs are great for developing the senses of young children.

It’s a great idea to choose plants that attract wildlife such as butterflies and bees. Your children will love watching them fly around whilst learning about the important role that pollinating insects play in the environment.

However, it’s important to ensure that none of your plants are toxic when you’re designing a child-friendly garden. Potentially poisonous plants include foxgloves, daffodils, giant hogweed and bluebells, so be sure to do your research before selecting your plants.

Create an area for adults

There’s nothing better than relaxing in your garden, watching your children playing happily together. Creating an area for adults to enjoy will give you your own personal space to relax and enjoy the outdoors for yourself.

Try to position this area so that you have a view over the area where your children will be playing so you can keep an eye on them whilst you’re relaxing. Many people choose to have a patio area near the house with a comfortable sofa and a table and chairs.

You might also like to consider the position of the sun at different times of the day. Some people like to remain shaded throughout the day whilst others prefer to have the sun on their patio in the afternoon.  

Design a vegetable garden

You can encourage your children to learn about nature by providing them with a space to grow their own fruits and vegetables.

They will love planting their own seeds, nurturing their plants and finally harvesting and eating their own produce. Children have an immense sense of satisfaction and achievement when they successfully manage to grow their own food.

You can create a vegetable patch using raised sleepers. Make sure this is positioned in an area which receives plenty of sunlight to give your child’s plants the best chance of thriving.

Take home message

There are many things you can do to create the perfect garden for both children and adults alike. From creating designated areas for your child to play and adults to relax to choosing the right plants and giving your child the opportunity to grow their own food, the possibilities are endless.  

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