AIBU- garden toys

[MotherOfDragon20]

need opinions on this because I’m about to lose my shit with DH

we’re very lucky to have a very large mature garden, lots of lovely trees and bushes, and a very large lawn. This has become DHs pride and joy, and he does a really good job on maintaining it. The problem is we had 2 kids, 3 year old DD and 12 month old DS who has just started walking but obviously very unsteady and falls a lot. They both love to play outside and we have lots of garden toys. Every night DH goes outside and moves all of the toys onto the patio so the grass doesn’t die underneath them. This drives me absolutely crazy. Every single time the kids want to go outside and play I need to move everything back onto the grass. We also have stairs in the garden so really I can’t take my eyes off the baby for a second incase he heads to the stairs. Some of the toys I can’t move myself like the Wendy house and the sandpit so really they are useless. So moving 2 slides, a mud kitchen, sand pit, Wendy house, various cars, tunnels, tractors, ball pit etc is actually very difficult while keeping an eye on the baby. I have asked him a hundred times to stop it and really this just isn’t the time in our life for a perfectly manicured lawn and it’s more important for the kids to have a safe garden to play in. He agrees, apologies, says agrees to stop it, yet here we are again a lovely day looking at garden with all the toys piled on the deck. I know it’s not a massive deal but as anyone who has young kids will testify to, anything that makes life that little bit harder is just a pita.

AIBU- really not a big deal.

IANBU- bury him under his precious bloody grass

If he can move them off at night he can put them back out in the morning. Problem solved!

Why is he making your life harder.

It's time for a garden re-vamp. Challenge him to design the problem away..

Exactly!!

This. Before work, if necessary. I don't care if he leaves at 6am.

Perhaps they could just play with sand and mud directly on the grass rather than moving heavy structures and containers.
And perhaps have the hose out to create some puddles on the grass they can jump up and down in.
And maybe they could try digging for treasure - there's an X marking the spot over there on the grass......

Hes right though. The grass will die and youll end up with expensive returfing

Can you not have an area for play and the rest for looking manicured?

do you really need all that stuff out every day anyway? Why not rotate things?

Is the garden large enough to consider sectioning some of it off for the kids/toys? Seems to me this would be a better option whereby your DH doesn't have to worry about it, the kids can have fun, you don't have to play musical garden toys, and your DH can play Gardeners World with the rest of it.

He's right it will kill the grass and I can understand him being annoyed if he's spent a lot of time working on it.

Create a "kids area" in the garden where the toys live and stay.

But do they really need all those toys out everyday?

And gate the stairs off so 12 month old can't fall

Why can’t he just move them to different areas of the lawn every few days? So the grass survives and the toys are there for the DC to play with. That’s what we used to do.

I agrer about not leaving things like wendy houses on the grass, but you need to design the garden better and have a place for the big toys to live permanently

Surely the problem here isn't toys on grass at night though as the sun isn't out??? It's an issue during the day when sun is out on the grass.

I'm not that good at gardening though.

@Maddy70

nope!

@MotherOfDragon20

He can move the big heavy items around at the weekend - not onto the bloody patio, just a different patch of grass.

thats all it needs to maintain the health of the grass. It can always have a bit of seed put down if there's a bald patch at any time.

is he ND? He agrees & yet sticks to the routine?

tell him to stop or you'll have some planters built with very good blood & bone compost!!

Maybe I don’t understand the complexities for lawn maintenance but I kind of don’t really care if it dies under the toys. These are going to be a feature of our garden for years yet and if we have to pay to have it fixed down the line fair enough. Is this what everyone with kids does? Moved large heavy garden toys every night??

lol yes he definitely isn’t ND just loves that bloody grass! To be fair he is generally brilliant, great husband and amazing father but omg this issue is driving me crazy. He’s currently at the pub watching an apparently very important football game and I feel like phoning him to come home and move these toys (pubs just round the corner)

No. They have better designed gardens than you. You need a children’s area with the things having a permanent home. You’ve (both of you) just not put enough thought into your garden basically. I’d not have a Wendy house plonked in the middle of my lawn, what is that?! It needs a nice home with a suitable material under it so it doesn’t end up in mud. If it’s designed properly you’ll be able to use it as an outdoor play space even in winter.

Sorry but I'm with your DH here.

It won't just be an unmanicured lawn, the grass will die and trying to get it back is a nightmare

We do this... slide, little climbing frame, swing, water table all come off the lawn at night.

We don't then load them all back on but maybe put the one thing out we want them to play with

As the one in our house who painstakingly weeds, aerates, feeds and mows the lawn, I understand his reticence to let it just die

If he doesn't want the playhpuse, sand pit etc on the grass, he needs to put down an area of a child friendly surface for them to play on. Smaller toys... get a big box for them to live in.

To be fair we are in the process of doing exactly this. We have a piece of land to the side of our house which will be flat with no stairs and will be the “kids garden” won’t be finished for a few months yet though. And I do understand that it would be frustrating to have some of the grass get ruined but surely that is just what happens with young kids. What is the point in having a lovely green lawn to just look at. They probably don’t need so many toys but when we bought this house with a big garden I had visions of my kids running outside playing in the sun so yes they have lots of garden toys that they enjoy playing with.

Can they not play with the toys on the patio until the play area is ready? Maybe not the slide if they will get hurt coming off it, but the Wendy house and sand pit surely? Get some gym matting or the like to go under the Wendy house so it’s more comfortable.

I can see why he doesn’t want the lawn ruined if it’s a matter of months until the play area is ready.

Yep.... dead grass is not something to stress about when you have young children!

If I had your garden and was going to have a kiddy area in a few months, I'd designate a section of the lawn for the larger slide and Wendy house etc and accept it'll die, and arrange for it to be re-turfed/ re-seeded.

This, our lawn wasn’t big toy suitable so playhouse, sandpit and water table all lived on the patio.

this all just seems to be creating issue where it doesn’t need to be - from both sides!

You don’t need to move ALL of them back every morning, can’t you just move a few?

Of your garden is large you need a dedicated space for the Wendy house and mud kitchen. He’s right, the lawn will look shit if all left out. The toys won’t get used all winter but you have to look at the grass everyday.