First things first; the earlier you begin to have conversations that involve the whole family when designing your garden, the better. Children are incredibly creative and think in such a different way to adults that it can also be a really fun experience for everyone. When I’m working with families we often organise outdoor brainstorming sessions where everyone has an opportunity to be playful and creative and get involved in the outline design. Including everyone in this way not only sparks interesting ideas it also sets the tone for how you’re eventually going to be using the garden. A sense of shared responsibility also means little people are more likely to take an interest in and care of their outdoor spaces.
Andrée Davies of landscape architecture practice Davies White designed the Duchess of Cambridge’s ‘Back to Nature’ Chelsea garden in 2019, which had lots of fun elements for children and grown ups to enjoy. “Children come up with amazing ideas as they are not bound by the limitations that adults tend to learn” says Andrée. “A request for a helter skelter or rocket ship is often about the sensation that a child is looking to experience. Perhaps getting up high or having the feeling of flying. These things can be interpreted in ways that are achievable in a garden or park.”
Here are some more ideas for how to create an idyllic garden for all ages.
Garden designer Camellia Taylor suggests looking past the obvious items like wendy houses and sandpits and instead looking at how to engage the senses and include different sorts of skills. “You could create spaces for balance, problem solving or planning and it doesn’t need to be expensive. Focus on what they find fun!” says Camellia.
“It is important that we enable children to discover, explore and experience their garden [...] I like to create children’s spaces which feel unstructured and give the child freedom to explore and be creative. Children will find their own pockets of space. We just provide the platform.”
“Built structures like swings, and houses tend to be quite prescriptive - we prefer to work with more abstract interventions and let children explore them on their own terms” continues Andrée. “Rocks and water are endlessly interesting to most children. These types of environments are also much more sustainable.”
Also as we continue to understand more and more about neurodiversity, Camellia recommends using this broader spectrum of understanding to consider how each of your individual children would like to use the garden and what benefits it could bring them. “I have worked with lots of different people who experience the world in different ways” she says, “and have different sensory needs, so try and keep an open mind and listen to what each child may want.”
As any parent will know, one of the main issues with buying toys and equipment for children is how quickly they grow out of them. In our gardens we’re lucky; we can use natural materials that will age and also that can have many different lives. “The treehouses I make are often made by skilled local crafts-people” says Camellia. “I have recently made a treehouse with wood from a local coppice. By doing this, it also teaches children about the environment.”
“Logs can become seats, tables, benches or balance beams and dead trees can become fairy houses. Children are only children for a moment in time and their footprint of furniture will disappear and feed the ecosystem. Furniture that can adapt has more longevity which isn’t always the case for single-purpose manufactured goods.”
Design growing spaces that work for the whole family
“My starting point is to ensure that the height of the growing beds work for the whole family and that you can reach the centre without having to walk on the bed” says Camellia. “As a result, I find that rectangular and circular beds work well (although think about vertical planting if you don’t have much space). “If there is an outdoor kitchen area, it’s also good to strategically plant herbs in the area. This will help you to engage your children in the cooking process.” Having defined growing spaces for edible plants is also helpful in teaching children what is safe to eat and what isn’t.
This, says Camellia, is where it can be really helpful to call in an expert. “Whilst it is easy to create different areas for different family members, it is surprisingly tricky to make these individual spaces work together in harmony without fighting against each other” she explains.
“If you want children to play in one space rather than another, then make that space as exciting and multifunctional as possible. Children don’t need to be fenced in - they are naturally attracted to the place that they find more exciting and rewarding to be in.”
Being outside and exploring is something many of us remember fondly from childhood. Counting earwigs under logs, spotting tadpoles in a small pond - all these things are so simple and so important in helping nurture a child’s instinctive affinity with nature.
“A lot of our work is about creating nature rich environments that are playful” reflects Camellia. “Using natural materials like tree trunks, logs, rocks and stone, sand and water and most importantly lots of trees and plants. Children invent their own games in environments that enable this.”
Andrée’s work is often in the public realm, so, she says, “we spend a lot of time making sure they are suitable for children of all abilities. This might be to do with having something for all ages, but also for children who may have limited mobility and use a wheelchair. We also work with children who have special educational needs and those on the Autism spectrum.”
There is a subtlety to this which comes down to clever and thoughtful design. “Often the adaptations are not visible, it might be to do with the surface material we use, reducing the changes of level and steps on paths so that wheelchair users can access the garden” explains Andrée. “It might be about the amount of visual information we include, for example some children on the Autism spectrum feel anxious surrounded by too much visual information so we would design something simple without too many changes in materials and colours.”
