Can you help me with math, chippings and a border?

[Danni91]

We have a climbing frame thats 4M by 5.5M. I would like to create a border around it raised, and fill it with the rubber chippings. Normally we bark in the entire kids area which includes trampoline / baby swing but it normally costs £100 every spring and is not appealling to look at.

I believe the timber for the border I need is 3 by 1 wood? 5m x 6m.
Would I need to make a small trench and pop these into the ground or lay it on top of the current grass/bark area.

How many chippings would be required to fill this?

I also have 2 cordylines placed in the ground last year from being in pots. They're about 4ft tall, is it too late to dig them back up and move them somewhere else?

And one last thing, last year i planted tulip bulbs in some pots, and 2 planters. The tulips are huge in height compared to the pots and im worried they will droop. Should i plant directly in the ground next time?

Thanks if anyone can help

if you put a timber boundary around your climbing frame, is there a risk that the child falls off the climbing frame & cracks their head on the timber? public playgrounds often have a v big area around each bit of equipment to stop that happening. Also, the rubber chippings are sure to get out & get scattered everywhere. I'd stick to bark.

the tulips should be fine in their pots.
cordyline is pretty tough so you could try moving it.

Re the tulips - they are probably planted too shallow in the pot so you could tip it all out and replant more deeply.

Volume of chippings is 5m x 6m x depth (assuming you're going for a 5m x 6m frame). If you're going for 3 inches, that's 7.5cm which I'd have thought was a bit shallow. So let's go for 10cm to make the maths easier. 10cm = 0.1m, so your volume is now 5 x 6 x 0.1 cm = 3cu m. which is 3 of those big cubic builders' bags.

In terms of weight, if it were gravel or soil, that would be roughly 3 tonnes but I presume the rubber granules are a bit lighter. I see from google 50L is 20kg which means a builders bag (1000L) is 400kg or 0.4 tonne.

So basically you want 3cu m, or 3000Lor 1.2tonnes,

But I agree with Parietal that a rigid timber frame that close to a climbing frame is a fall hazard. Even if they fall from under the frame rather than outwards from the side, an awkward fall will have them sprawling full length, and hitting their head on the edge of a timber frame is going to cause a lot more damage than hitting their head on the ground.