KIDS IN THE GARDEN Equipped with everything from a zip line and wooden tree house to a circuit track, this amazing garden is nothing short of a paradise for little ones. Peter Shaw, a landscape designer who, along with his wife Simone, runs Ocean Road Landscaping, shares his secret to get kids outside in a place where the stimulus is natural.
When we opened our own garden to the public a couple of years ago through Open Gardens Australia we watched to see what people gravitated to. The answer was unexpected, and it made me think a lot more about the relationship between children and natural spaces. Over the weekend the garden was open, visitors — adults and children alike — were attracted to the bits specifically incorporated for our kids’ sakes. If you’re like us, keen to encourage natural play rather than hours spent indoors in front of a screen, you might find the following helpful. It’s what we’ve done, and done cheaply, and it seems to be working. As a professional, I’m often asked to design and build landscapes with children in mind. As I’m also a parent, I often refer to my own experience with our four children who are 16, 15, 12 and 10. Right from the beginning, even while we were still living in a construction zone, we’ve always had lots of things in the garden to attract play. In those days the children were younger and very happy to dig and fossick in piles of rocks, pebbles, soil and mulch. In the years since, they’ve grown and their needs have shifted so we’ve added things to suit.
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LOOPS ARE GREAT
A CRAZY LAWN
We’ve laid a circuit track through a bed of shrubs and under the trees, somewhere they can run along and hide, but, more importantly, there are places to visit along the way. A water bowl and firepit in a sitting area is a great place to go to read a book or sit aroundwith friends.
Until a little while ago we had a lawn like most other people, a flat zone of green. And it was put to the usual good use. But then we played with it and now have something with almost magnetic appeal.
Further along, the younger two have a fairy garden, furnished with a hammock and some logs. They’ve decorated the fence nearby with coloured chalk (it washes off, clearing the surface for new expression) and the rainbows they’ve drawn mean this place is now known as Rainbow Land. Yes, it’s a bit more difficult to mow but almost everyone who visits — child or adult — takes off their shoes to sink their feet into our meet the drive so on coming home I often look through the trees and see my kids at play.
We took the lawn and divided it into a series of soft interconnected mounds in varying heights so that now just walking across our lawn is fun, or lying in the valleys between to read a book is fun — or sitting on top or playing with the dog or rolling around.
Photography – Peter Shaw
