When we bought our current house, just over a year ago. One of the things that sold it to us was the garden. Neither myself or my husband have green fingers and it’s pretty much low maintenance and was already landscaped.
Now we have a little one, I would like to make the garden more child friendly and have some more family time in the garden. I really feel like children spend too much time indoors these days, they need the fresh air and the Vitamin D.
There are a few things I want to change, see that big rock? That’s actually a water feature! I would like to get rid of it, along with the pebbles that surround it. I want the paved area to be somewhere that can be used for ride along toys, without the rock blocking the way.
As you can see from the picture, we also have a decked area. Looking at the picture, on the left we have a fig tree and on the right, we have a tree and a spikey bush. Like I said, I don’t have green fingers, so I don’t know their names lol
My mother wouldn’t be too happy if we chopped down the fig tree, she made chutney out of this years fruit. But the tree and the spikey bush would have to go as I would want the decking to be Willow’s play area.
The decking does need to be treated but that’s an easy job for the husband to do….hahahaha.
Safety is very important. Although Willow wouldn’t be unsupervised, you can’t help trips and falls from happening. I would purchase a few of these Protektamats from Activity Toys Direct they are very reasonably priced at £13.99 and are pretty big in size.
We recently took Willow to the park for the first time, she loved the swings and was giggling away to herself. For this reason, I would l would love to get a swing set for her. I think this swing from TP Toys growable swing with quadpod. It works out better value than the other TP Toys swings, as it includes a seat, unlike the others where they have to be purchased separately.
I do love the activity centres and the climbing frames but because of Willow’s age, they wouldn’t be suitable, I’d get a playhouse instead. I think the wooden playhouses look better than the plastic type and if they are treated from the elements, they will last a long time. I’ve seen a lot of plastic playhouses that have faded from the sun. The AXI Noa playhouse would be perfect for my little princess, what I love about it, is that it comes untreated. We could paint and finish it how we want it. I could even make some little curtains for the windows and decorate with some fairy lights! A bargain at £185!
Keeping with the wooden toy theme, I’d buy a TP Toys picnic table/sandpit. A picnic table and a sandpit in one. We already have a bucket play set that would go really well with it. Something like this is great for little ones hand/eye co-ordination, which is very important.
Because of our British weather, I’d like to have some toys in the conservatory for rainy days, this Plum terrace wooden kitchen would be ideal. I used to love playing ‘kitchen’ and ‘shop’ when I was younger.
That’s everything I would like to do for a play area, I would also like to have a go at growing some veggies, nothing too adventurous, carrots, peas, potatoes, some salad leaves and strawberries. I think a little vegetable patch would go here….
I think it’s the perfect little space to start a veggie patch, we already have a bay tree. If it’s successful, we could expand it and grow more of a variety the year after next. I would also like some sort of fruit tree, probably an apple tree. When I grew up, my parents had a massive pear tree in the garden and every summer we would have loads and loads of pears. A Willow tree would look lovely and also the babies namesake but they grow fast and have very extensive root systems, I wouldn’t want to risk any damage to our or the neighbours properties.
If growing our own veg is a success, in the future, I would like to have a water butt and a compost bin.
I would like to encourage wildlife into the garden, a bird table and feeders is a must and also wildflowers for bee and insects – they are so important! The RHS site has lots of info on pollinators and plants for pollinators. I’d like to do my part for conservation and make a flower bed or lots of pots with wildflowers especially for the bees and other insects.
Some inspiration for finishing touches……
We are lucky enough to have a garden table and chairs, BBQ and a conservatory already. The table, chairs and BBQ have been put into the garage for the winter. You will notice there is no grass in our garden and my husband wants to keep it that way but there is a very large grassed area about 2 minutes walk from our home.
I’ve made a picture of what our Garden would look like with the adjustments made……
Costs.
Garden toys.
Swing £127.99
AXI Noa playhouse £185.00
Picnic table/sandpit £58.99
Plum cottage wooden kitchen £109.99
Plum Protektamat £11.99
Total = £493.96.
Garden improvements.
Wild flower seeds £5
Vegetable seeds and compost £25
Bird table £25
Bird seed £5
Apple tree £20
Strawberry plants £10
Bee/insect houses £10
Assortment of plant pots £25
Total = £125.00
These garden improvements costs are a total guess, as I really don’t have a clue how much this type of stuff costs. If costs were really this low, we could also get paint for the decking and playhouse and even afford to buy the water butt and compost bin this year.
“This blog post is an entry into the Tots100/Activity Toys Direct garden makeover competition”
willowmakesthree 