Get the Most From Your Outdoor Space
Garden Playhouses
Wooden outdoor children's play buildings, just add kids and imagination
Q. I wonder if you can advise on suitable surfaces for a children's play area (playhouse, slide etc). We are not so keen on lawn as the shape of the area is long and thin and therefore difficult to mow - what alternative surfaces would you recommend?
A. The easiest material to use is either natural wood "play-bark", bark chips selected to be larger and softer than those used as a mulch, or man made rubber chips. The rubber chips are initially more expensive than bark though won't rot down and may be the cheaper long-term solution, play-bark will need topping up every couple of years or so. Both will wear, compress and get squashed into the soil, they may also need to be dug up and disposed off at some point in the future, bark will rot away while some rubber chips will be with you forever!. To be effective it needs to be placed at a depth of 6" / 15cm which means that:
1/ You need a lot!
2/ You need some kind of edging
material to keep it in place. I favour rustic logs laid
down if I can get them. If not, then rustic fencing posts
are good, use one on top of another both nailed or screwed
to large pegs knocked into the ground. Log roll could be
used or even gravel boards or scaffolding planks. The main
thing is to make sure they're supported strongly enough
- that's where tree trunks / logs are good, as the children
are bound to at least step on them if not make a game out
of walking along the edge.
3/ You might want to place
a weed-proof membrane under the bark to stop weeds growing
through it.
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