For families with young children, a child-friendly garden is a must. For example, the first thing we did when we bought this house 15 years ago was to close the pond. With a baby on the way, I couldn't imagine having water in the garden. But there are of course many more things to keep in mind if you want to design your garden in a child-friendly way. Sufficient space for outdoor toys, for example 😉 .
Table of Contents
As indicated above, we immediately closed the pond. Maybe you would think that would be a shame, but I just thought the risk was too great. It can also be quite a job, depending on the size of the pond of course. The pond has to be completely filled with earth again, unless you make it into a sitting hole 😉 . Years later, there were potholes in the grass at the site of the original pond, or so it goes. But hey, everything for that child-friendly garden. If you prefer to use a pond fence, then you have beautiful specimens here.
As far as I'm concerned, a must if I had to make a garden child-friendly. Grass. A garden with only tiles in it is not only very bad for the environment, but also unfriendly for your child. Yes, they can go everywhere with their bicycle, but nothing is better than rolling around in the grass or having a picnic on a rug on the grass. Running barefoot on the grass, playing soccer for example. And if your baby falls? No problem, because of the grass there is often nothing wrong, they get up and run again. Indispensable in a child-friendly garden.
Would you like to give your children plenty of space to play outside, but do you also like a little bit of order in your garden? Then it is smart to set up a special corner in your garden for your children.
You can do this, for example, by creating an extra partition in your garden. This is even an option for small gardens, because the separation does not have to be as high as the boundary between the neighbors. No, use lower fences or a low hedge behind which your child can play in the sandbox and you can still keep an eye on things. This way you have a child-friendly garden that you can also keep a little tidy.
You and your partner can enjoy a cup of coffee in your new garden furniture and watch your child have fun and play in the garden.
You can count that on your fingers of course, that a sandbox should not be missing. You can use a wooden sandbox, and if you still want to do it in style in the child-friendly garden, then you can build the sandbox into a deck. I think it's a great idea I must say.
We ourselves had such a shell as a sandbox. The advantage of this is that they are easy to move if you want something different, but a nice wooden sandbox is really cool.
Tip:use the lid of the shell as a small water bath when the weather is nice. This way the children can mess around with water and cool off from an early age.
The swing, playhouse and trampoline are also very popular summer toys. If you would like to give your garden a beautiful appearance - in addition to being child-friendly - you can choose to use the swing in a different variant as in the photo above.
An arched swing, for example, immediately produces a completely different view than the standard swings that you normally see in a child-friendly garden. The eye also wants something, right?
Make sure that you have a soft surface at the location of a swing or climbing frame, otherwise you can't really speak of a garden that is child-friendly, can you? Think of grass or rubber tiles, for example.
Messing around with water is wonderful. Baking and cooking with water and sand is even more beautiful! A wooden children's kitchen, also called mud kitchen, is therefore a very cool accessory for the child-friendly garden. They can finally go about their business in the kitchen without you having to keep an eye on them.
You don't need a lot of space for it, but it is a lot of fun. Animals in the garden. Keep in mind that you cannot saddle the children with all the care and that you also have to do the necessary yourself. But then you have nice fresh eggs 😉 .
We have rabbits in the garden and a beautiful run. We finished these with composite decking boards (which we also used for the decking behind it). The run fits completely into the style of the garden and the children have animals to play with in our child-friendly garden.
An important part of your child-friendly garden are child-friendly plants. Plants that can take a beating (because what do you think happens to football). But also plants that pose no danger to your children. Plants that are not poisonous.
You may already know that foxglove can be dangerous for children, but the spotted arum, the hogweed and the sweet snowdrop are also quite poisonous. Do you want to know everything about poisonous plants in the garden? Wikipedia has a nice list.
It is not strange if you also want a terrace in your garden, of course not. And even a terrace fits perfectly in your child-friendly garden. Moreover, you have nice little garden maintenance, which is also nice if you prefer to sit in the garden than work in it! As long as you make sure that the tiles cannot get too hot in full sun. For example, we now have Chinese bluestone in the garden. Beautiful, but sweltering hot in the summer. Walking barefoot? No, that really doesn't work. It is not a bad thing, but be aware of it, especially with small children.
Furthermore, a beautiful terrace is ideal for chalking on the sidewalk, jumping rope, hopscotch, scootering, or playing with the hoverboard. So super child-friendly.
You may not want to think about it yourself, but children often find it very fun and interesting to see how vegetables grow. I like it myself, although it can be quite a lot of work. But if it's up to me, there will also be a corner for the vegetable garden in a child-friendly garden. Or just in containers on the terrace, that's also possible.
You may need quite a bit of space in your garden for some of the inspirational gardens below, but you can also implement some things in a small garden. For example, you can place a slide separately, but you can also build a hill with soil so that children do not have to climb the stairs, but have to climb the mountain. Super cool!
If you want to set up your garden in a child-friendly way, you may find some inspiration from Pinterest below.
Look, this is one of those cases that you can only use in a somewhat larger garden in this way. But how much fun is it? Do you have a very good relationship with the neighbors and a very strong fence? Then you might as well use it as a climbing wall in your child-friendly garden.
Who says that you always need outdoor toys to create a child-friendly garden, is wrong. There is a lot for your child to discover in the garden, especially with a natural approach. In the above way you can see that with a number of tree stumps and some sand in between you can come a long way.
It seems like a crime to mow the grass, but it is a lot of fun for the children. A simple idea for your child-friendly garden that does not have to cost much. Fun to hop, for example!
Not only fun for the little ones, but also for the older kids. Pull them out from behind their iPad and challenge them to a game of chess in the open air. Very nice idea!
This play hut is a lot nicer for a child-friendly garden than a plastic tent. Admittedly, such a plastic case is a lot faster and can be cleaned up in no time. But just think how hot it gets in such a tent in the summer. You have a lot less trouble with that. In addition, it is also fun to build it with your child.
If you have enough space, a pipowagen is also very nice. You have to pull your wallet because those things are quite popular at the moment. You can get a new gypsy wagon for just under €4000.00, but you can still assemble it yourself because often you get them delivered as a kit. I think they are beautiful and they would certainly not look out of place in our child-friendly garden in the new house. But first have to fix up the rest.
A good idea if you don't want your terrace covered with chalk every time is a chalkboard in your child-friendly garden. And it still looks styled like that, don't you think?
Water is indispensable in good weather. Children can have hours of fun with it. Especially if there is water and sand. With a water flow tree like the one above, you are assured of an afternoon of lazing in your child-friendly garden with your friends. The kids do play with each other while you enjoy a coffee, tea or a delicious rosé on your terrace in a nice lounger.
No big tree in the garden, or just not that much space? Then this 'tree house' might still be an option for you in the child-friendly garden. It gives the same feeling as a tree house, but you don't need a big tree for it. In addition, it is a little less high, which also means less worries.
