Small garden- keep lawn or put in play equipment for kids?

[RoseGoldEagle]

We’re moving soon into a house with a small garden (current one is bigger but we don’t use it loads because it’s not secure and the layout of the house makes it hard to easily access).

We have room to put in a small patio and have table/chairs out there, and then there’s a small area of grass. Trying to decide if it’s worth just taking up the lawn with a trampoline/climbing frame/similar (that would take up all the space), or to keep the lawn so they can play a bit more freely on it. But there’s not really room to run around on it anyway as it’s small, so I’m not sure why I’m thinking that- just that if we take the whole space with play equipment it might make it seem smaller somehow.

Can anyone with gardens on the smaller side share what play equipment you’ve found works well? Kids are 8, 5 and 3.

(Needless to say I know not everyone has a garden at all and I’m not complaining! Just want to maximise the use of the space!)

Thanks for any advice!

Is there a park nearby, and will your kids be using it?

If it's really small, what will they do? Ours used to ride trikes, kick a ball around and play with mud - all need a bit of space. We did have a big frame with swings and swingball, both which got a lot of use. We did take them to the park at the end of the road most of the time, and as they got into their teens, they were more inclined to take themselves there or be inside.

Could you put some play things round the edge of the garden rather than something that takes up the middle? So a sand and water play table up against the fence, mid kitchen, climbing tower or climbing mound in the corner or one of those wooden boats, a drawing wall? Then put the patio in and get a small children's picnic bench or table and chairs.

Mud kitchen not mid kitchen

Trampoline was the best thing we ever bought for our boys with a small garden. They got hours more use out of the garden. But we knew that they really wanted one, so go with what your kids enjoy.

In similar circumstances we went to the park a LOT.

With not much space I'd be inclined to put in something they won't have at the park - either trampoline or plastic big pool (6ft across)

Both were popular with mine.

Thanks, good idea to put in things they wouldn’t find at the playground! They always love trampolines in other people’s gardens so am tempted to try and fit one in, though I always wonder if we had our own if they’d just get bored of it! There’s a playground down the road so we’ll head there quite often I think. Off to look up wooden boats and drawing walls!! xx

I think the issue you will have is that the 3 yo and 8 yo will have very different wants with the 5 yo in the middle. I have a probably neurotic issue with trampolines after some nasty injuries amongst friends kids so I have a strict one on rule which can be hard to enforce as of course they want to be together.

I think I would keep the space and add smaller items as necessary - swing ball, sand pit / water table
For the little one, football goal etc.