An outdoor play area should be planned into the landscape of every home with children. There are a lot of rewards for creating an outdoor play area for the children: they are happy, parents are happy knowing the children are safe, and the rest of the garden is usually left undisturbed. It may turn out that your area could become a favorite hangout of the neighborhood kids, which might be a mixed blessing. It is usually quite easy to add at least a small play area to your landscaping plans.
Homes with small children should place play areas close to the house. The kids will be close within sight but not feel locked up or restrained. An area that is visible from a the most used areas of the house is good. A lot of manmade toys like swings and slides are made for play areas. However, young kids are really good at coming up with their own games using nothing more than sticks, rocks, dirt, and other natural objects. A basic sandbox will keep small children happy for hours. Add some simple elements like stones to the sandbox. (When the kids are grown, you can change the sandbox into a raised garden bed.) Along with a small tree with strong branches close to the ground, an old log makes a good climbing frame.
The older kids will prefer their play areas be a little further away from the house. Still, they should always be in a very visible place that has been specifically planned into the front yard design or backyard landscaping ideas. Older children love to use their imagination, so don’t provide them with a treehouse immediately. Begin with the simple, possibly using some boards nailed to a tree as steps or even a piece of rope to climb up into the trees. Then the tree can be a house, a plane or a pirate ship, as the occasion demands.
A rough grassy patch can be good as a play area as it is soft enough to fall in and possibly long enough to be a hiding spot. If this just doesn’t seem to go with your landscaping ideas, consider bark mulch as a good surface underneath play areas, and especially those with a trampoline, as a cushion from falls.
A hard concrete patch will also be invaluable as the children get older. This is where they will learn to skate, ride their tricycle, learn to ride a bike, and practice many other ideas and skills. And those other skills may even include gardening, if you give them a small, sunny place of their very own.