Rubber Mats or Similar? - Kids Garden

[storybrooke]

Hi,

Was hoping for any advice/suggestions. We're doing up the garden and putting a bordered play area for the kids with their swing/mud kitchen/garden toys and are a bit stumped on what to lay on the floor. It has to be softish as youngest is just one so stones ruled out, can't leave as grass as we're digging out borders where it will be and the static toys will kill the grass underneath anyway. I was looking at rubber mats but they're so expensive! Has anyone done similar/have any suggestions?

We put wood chip down when we bought the kids a climbing frame/swing set. There had been concrete there before and this was the cheapest option I could find.
It needs to be quite deep, but it makes for a reasonably soft landing.
It is a bit jaggy if you're bare foot though. Bark chip is probably a bit softer.

I've got an area of the garden with those foam mats on, the bright coloured ones with numbers and letters and stuff? They're fine over the mud, wouldn't like to test them over concrete though. They're much cheaper than rubber mats.

Rubber bits? A friend I know has bought these for a play area in their garden. Made from old tyres I believe.

24 50cm square mats £39.99.

We've had the coloured version of these down in the garden for 9 years now. They've been in four different gardens (i've moved a lot). The red ones are slightly faded but they've really stood the test of time well.

We have some rubber mats from ELC by our swings, and also have a couple of largish, heavy duty mats from a horse shop. These have grid design and are better for the grass. They are pretty robust too, so might be worth considering depending upon what you are looking for.