Creating a family garden
Has the onset
of better
weather
made you
think, yet
again, about the need for
a family-friendly garden,
as your child’s games
scuff up the lawn and
flatten the emerging
plants in your borders?
But how do you create a
space where you can
enjoy adult time without
tripping over sandpits,
swings and paddling
pools, while protecting
your beautiful borders
from the dreaded football?
Award-winning garden
designer – and mother
of two – Bunny Guinness
knows only too well the
space that children need
to play but the havoc
they can wreak among
your borders.
“We often veer between
extremes,” she says.
“Either the whole garden
becomes an area to
contain plastic climbing
frames and the like – and
that makes any attempt
to create an attractive
garden impossible – or
any hint of family fun is
banished, sacrificed to
the cause of a garden
that’s just for admiring.”
It is possible to create a
garden for both adults
and children, she insists,
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. If they
make a mess, so be it.
“Their area may have a
lot of tough planting,
perhaps 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 your children to
other gardens to see
what they like and see if
you can adapt their ideas
to their own space.
Trampolines have
become increasingly
popular, but if you don’t
want it to be a
predominant feature
then sink it into the
ground. A sunken
trampoline is not just
better visually, it’s also
safer because the
children don’t have as
far to fall.”
Sandpits are also easy to
make by digging a hole,
laying a permeable
lining which 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 it’s not in use. Put
a drainable paddling
pool next to the sand so
the children can play
with sand and water
together.
To keep an adult area in
good shape there will
need to be rules in place,
she says.
“There needs to be no-go
zones. In my front
courtyard the children
know that if the ball
goes into my box-edged
beds, it stays there.
If you
have certain ground
rules they will understand
the reason why.
When you’re planning
your family-friendly
garden remember that
children are going to
have different needs
from one year to the
next.
“Keep the garden
dynamic,” advises
Bunny. “Don’t think
that once you’ve
designed it, that’s it.
The children will move
on and will probably
want something new
each year.”
• Family Gardens by
Bunny Guinness is
published by David &
Charles and costs £12.99.
Garden Jobs
• When the soil has warmed up
sufficiently under cloches, sow
broad beans, cabbage, carrot,
cauliflower, lettuce, early peas,
spinach and turnip;
• Protect peaches from rain to
avoid peach leaf curl fungus;
• Net blackcurrants against
bullfinches which will eat the
buds;
• Sow winter cabbage, sprouting
broccoli and leek in a seedbed;
• Lift, divide and replant chives
and sorrel;
• Replace rockery plants;
• Rake the lawn to remove old
thatch. You may also be able to
mow the lawn, weather permitting;
• Plant lilies outside if the weather
is favourable. If not, pot them up
for planting later;
• Ventilate the greenhouse on
sunny days, but close it up almost
completely at night;
• Sow cucumbers, tomatoes and
melons for growing in a cool
greenhouse.
• Begin liquid feeding indoor
potted plants.
Best of the bunch
Magnolia
Magnolias, with their spectacular
waxy flowers in shades of pink,
cream and white, love acid soil,
although there are types which will
withstand alkaline soil. They must
be planted where they have room
to grow without being pruned, so
that their graceful shape is retained.
As well as the large varieties such
which can grow to 18m and produce
huge, fragrant, creamy-white
flowers from late summer to
autumn, there are also smaller, but
no less impressive types.
Magnolias like full sun or light shade.
Enrich the soil with plenty of
organic matter before planting them.
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