In The Garden
| NORTH YORKSHIRE |  | | | CLEVELAND | | | COUNTY DURHAM | | |
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Child-friendly gardens should be good for adults, too
HOW do you create a garden
where you can enjoy
adult time without tripping
over sandpits,
swings and paddling pools, while
protecting beautiful borders from
the dreaded football?
Award-winning garden designer
and mother-of-two Bunny Guinness
knows only too well that children
need to play, but can wreak
havoc among borders. "We seem
to veer between extremes," she
observes.
"Either the whole garden becomes
merely an area to contain plastic
climbing frames and the like, or
any hint of family fun is banished,
sacrificed to the cause of a garden
that is purely for admiring."
But she insists it is possible to create
a garden for both adults and
children, if you follow some basic
design principles. "If you can honeypot
an area and give them their
space so they have privacy from
you and you from them, that always
helps. Then, if they make a
mess then so be it.
"Their area may have a lot of
tough planting, maybe ivy as
ground cover so they can play
among it, big bamboos or shrubby
willows that you can coppice
down. Don't spend a fortune on
fulfilling the needs of one age because
they will get bored with it
quite quickly."
Take children to other gardens to
see what they like and see if you
can adapt their ideas to their own
space. Trampolines are popular,
but if you don't want it to be a predominant
feature, sink it into the
ground. You'll need a mini-digger
to dig out the earth - and could
then use that to create a mound
around the trampoline hole and
plant hedging around it.
"In specifications, I've always allowed
for a sump for drainage, but
I've never had to put one in," says
Guinness, a regular on BBC Radio
4's Gardeners' Question Time and
author of the best-selling Family
Gardens. "A sunken trampoline is
not just visual, it's also safer because
the children don't have as
far to fall."
Sandpits are easy to make by digging
a hole, laying a permeable
lining that allows water to drain
(provided you have free-draining
soil), and filling it with playpit
sand. It will be bigger and better
than any portable sandpit and you
can cover it with camouflage nets
from army surplus stores when
not in use. Put a drainable paddling
pool next to the sand so the
children can play with sand and
water together.
For keeping an adult area, there
will need to be rules in place, she
says. "There needs to be no-go
zones. In my front courtyard
where I have box-edged beds, the
children knew if the ball went into
the beds that was it, it stayed
there.
"If you have certain ground rules
they will understand the reason
why. A friend of mine lets her children
play football only in the winter,
because she has a lot of herbaceous
plants that are below
ground then. Balls can cause a
problem, but if you have room for
a piece of grass to accommodate,
say, French cricket, that's great.
"You just need to design the layout
so you haven't got your delphiniums
on top of your French
cricket. If you haven't got room
then take the ball to the park."
When planning a family-friendly
garden, remember that children
are going to have different needs
from one year to the next. "Keep the garden dynamic," she advises.
"Don't think that once you've designed
it, that's it. They will move
on and will probably be wanting
something new each year."
Family Gardens, by Bunny Guinness,
is published by David &
Charles, £12.99.
Jobs this week
❃ Sow winter cabbage, sprouting
broccoli and leek in a seedbed.
❃ Lift, divide and replant chives
and sorrel.
❃ Replace rockery plants.
❃ Rake the lawn.
1:40pm Friday 11th April 2008
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