Family Gardens

Any parent will tell you that gardens are an absolute god-send during the summer months, providing a safe outdoor environment for the kids to burn off their excess energy. And with a report in the Daily Mail reporting that children should be doing at least 90 minutes of physical activity a day to stave off heart disease, running around the garden not only makes sense in terms of maintaining your sanity - it also represents a healthy recreation for your kids (especially in an age where TVs and computer screens seem to increasingly dominate their lives).

The key to any successful family garden is to recognise that your outdoor space will need to cater for the demands of family life and will consequently need to fulfill a number of uses. The priority for most families is to incorporate a safe play zone and a comfortable eating area contained within a patio, with of course the ubiquitous splash of greenery courtesy of lawns, trees, hedging and planting displays. The challenge therefore is how to create a desirable space for children without compromising on the additional functional and aesthetic requirements of the adults - for example, whereas children may view the garden as their creative play area, most parents like to think of their outdoor space as a form of sanctuary, ie somewhere to unwind and relax. And while the kids may think there?s nothing wrong with the array of toys strewn across the entire garden, parents meanwhile will be bemoaning the loss of their longed for stylish outdoor room.

Sunday Telegraph writer and mother-of-two Bunny Guinness knows only too well the space that children need to play but the havoc they can wreak among your carefully-planted borders. In her book "Family Gardens" she says "we seem to veer between extremes, either the whole garden becomes merely an area to contain plastic climbing frames and the like, that make any attempt to create an attractive garden impossible, or else any hint of family fun is banished, sacrificed to the cause of a garden that is purely for admiring".

The key to achieving a harmonious solution to the above dilemma is quite simple - plan your garden carefully before you spend a fortune on an outdoor space that is not capable of delivering against your family's needs, and seek out the advice of the professionals. Work with someone who is not just a garden designer but who also has the relevant expertise and experience to translate the final approved design through to the installation of your family's dream outdoor room.

As part of the planning process you'll also need to take into consideration some important factors to ensure the garden remains a safe environment for your children. For example:

• If your garden is hedged, it will need to be checked regularly for gaps and for complete safety you might want to run chicken wire down the base of a hedge if it isn't bush all the way to the ground, to keep children in
• You'll also need to check fences and gates to ensure they are secure. Walls can present a hazard in their own right as older walls can crumble away in time and have been known to collapse which obviously represents a major cause for concern
• Be sure to keep borders trimmed back from paths so that sharp leaves or thorns don't become entangled in smaller children's clothes, hair or possibly faces and eyes as they walk, run or ride past. Try to avoid prickly or thorny shrubs at all as they tend to be at head height for smaller children
• Beware of dangerous plants in the garden and educate the children on the hazards of eating them. Some plants feature sharp stems which are quite capable of delivery a nasty cut (such as pampas grass), whilst the pointy leaves and thorns of holly or roses can also lead to a painful experience for a child
• Don't install climbing equipment or playhouses near concreted areas or too near walls, fences or large bushes. Ideally you should site any play equipment on a dedicated play surface
• Always ensure paving is laid properly by a professional (especially on steps) and replace any damaged paves as soon as cracks appear or if they work loose, since these can so often be responsible for causing a nasty trip
• Ponds can be dangerous for obvious reasons so fence them off, make sure they are out of bounds or better still, fill them in
• Trampolines have become increasingly popular, but if you don?t want it to be a predominant feature then sink it into the ground. A sunken trampoline is not just visually more acceptable, it is also safer because the children don?t have so far to fall

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