making a garden baby friendly

[bossykate]

hello everyone

ds (9m) is now mobile, crawling, pulling himself up, "cruising" etc. We have a small patio garden (no grass), with steps, raised beds and other hazards.

i would be very grateful if anyone could make any suggestions about how we could child proof the garden in some way. one thought i have had is astroturf over the patio - you can see i am struggling for inspiration on this!

thanks very much in advance.

We also have a patio garden with raised flower beds, and in the end we lifted the flags to lay down turf. Luckily there was soil underneath, obviously it wouldn't have been so easy if it had been solid concrete or something. In all we turfed a patch about 8-10 foot square; sounds small but it's made all the difference. Ds crawled on it happily - it's surrounded by raised beds - and now kicks a football around on it. Quite hard work but not very expensive, & ds enjoys the garden hugely

A short-term measure (less plastic than astroturf) might be some kind of rush matting that would last a summer and not have disintegrated totally by the time you wanted to chuck it away. You could secure it to the steps, raised bed borders etc with battens. Rushes smell lovely in the warm sun - although I am not sure I could cope with the possible influx of ecstatic insects...I am afraid I am also not the kind of trendy person who knows where you can buy such rush matting...smart garden centres maybe?
Just wait til he is old enough to help water your pot plants. I have a very traumatised clematis to coax back to life this spring, I think it is under the impression it's been planted in the middle of a pond.

Depending on the dryness of this summer (!) you could lay down a large soft mat or mats when DD wants to play outside, then roll them up again and store away when you have finished. Those plastic padded mats you get in exercise classes come to mind, but I don't know where you would get them from.

Also, a collection of plastic inflatables might help. Not only could your dd play on them, they would also pad out and block off toddler-unfriendly areas. To help them stay fixed in one place you could attach them to surfaces using elephant tape.

I know the above might not look very beautiful, but at least the transformation is temporary. It is amazing what a year will do: our toddler unfriendly garden of last year has transformed, witout any help from us, into an adventure playground this year. In the last 12 months our getting on for three-years old has become so much more surefooted.

I've used old sleeping bags, quilts and blankets which provide a comfortable & soft surface and they can be thrown in to the washing when required.

bossykate, I would really consider laying down new turf. Our local garden centre does it and will deliver to your house and it really isn't expensive. Alternatively, you can get a company to come and lay it for you (look up turf in your yellow pages) but it's much more expensive. Our daughter loves our little bit of lawn and last year (when just crawling) happily played on it. Steps may be more difficult though and you could always put a little gate at the bottom so he couldn't get up else you won't be able to relax. Perhaps even a stairgate could be temporarily put there?? Raised beds, if he can reach into them, probably means soil will be in his mouth, not much you can do other than closely supervise.
Good luck.

Where we live, there are no gardens - only patios and terraces so the children have no choice but to get used to hard surfaces. Their hands and knees are actually quite resilient. I wouldnt worry too much about the surface, it seems a shame to remove paving slabs etc. when this will only be a short phase. We usually just put down a rug to play on. I have had to get used to letting ds crawl about on hard surfaces as inside we have tiles on all the floors too.

Soil in the mouth is a problem but youll have to be vigilant until ds learns that it isnt as tasty as it looks. (The only thing about playing in the flower beds is keeping them free of cat poo.)

What about a sandpit for the summer? Again the sand in the mouth phase doesnt usually last long once they realise what it tastes like.

How about carpet? We are in the process of renewing the carpets in our house, so last year the lawn was covered in a patchwork of the various cutoffs, which worked well. If you go to one of these bargain carpet places, you can pick up room sized pieces of carpet (new!) quite cheaply. When it gets dirty, you can treat the neighbours to the sight of you hoovering the patio !

hi everyone

thanks very much for all the responses! hope i haven't given the impression that my aversion to astroturf arises from the fact we have an amazing diarmuid gavin style perfect (if bijou!) garden. put it this way, now that i have weeded, some plants might be nice!

i think the turfing is a really good suggestion. However, have given a lot of thought recently to "doing up" the garden and, since we have a terraced house, came to the conclusion that i didn't want burly workmen trundling their big wheelbarrows through my nice, new, painfully acquired, expensive (for us) kitchen. plus did not want to spend more cash on a house i am increasingly thinking we would move out of in a couple of years. so need to work with what is currently there.

thanks for all the ideas for different coverings too! there are definitely a couple of ideas i can try out there.

art - you make a good point. it is possible i am being too overprotective, and that he might as well get used to it. our garden is extremely attractive to the neighbourhood cats though... i will try it out and see how it goes.

thanks again!

bossykate -

Have just reread my message that I wrote yesterday and didnt mean to sound too blunt or imply that you were overprotective. I just remember when ds got on the move a few months ago and I was so paranoid about him bumping himself. (I used to follow an inch behind him trying to catch his head every time he rolled over.) I spent a fortune on a huge selection of rugs, blankets, carpets etc. trying to pad and soften his every move in our flat only to have them sitting in a redundant heap a month later as he is quite capable of crawling about on the tiles now without hurting himself.

Im sure whatever you choose ds will love it!