Bark or grass for garden play area?

[SoManyQuestions52]

We are potentially looking at doing something in our garden for 4yo. We have an area that we want to turn into a play area - thinking climbing frame/slide/swingset and possibly trampoline. So my question is.. bark or grass underneath?

My thinking so far..

Bark - seems to be the better option but my worries are that it will get spread all over the garden and into the house (although we would build a sleeper barrier to try to keep it in), its not very barefoot friendly, does it attract cats and foxes?! I really don’t want to be constantly removing 💩!

Grass - my worries are that it would have to stay as dirt for this summer as not enough time to turf before summer now, and once turfed, the foot traffic will likely kill it in places!

Grass if there are cats nearby. No need to turf- just scatter seed, much cheaper.

It's not too late to lay turf down, obviously it shouldn't be walked on for a few weeks but that's not too hard to manage at this time of year, is it? You just keep the kids out of that part of the garden until it's rooted, which doesn't really take long. It would need watering in and keeping damp. You can buy hard wearing turf which has more robust species of grass in it.

Bark is nice but I always think of it as getting woodlice and slugs sitting under the pieces which does put me off. I don't think it will attract cats to poo in it as the pieces are too big, but if you have foxes in the area it's possible you'll get fox poo anyway. I have noticed that some animals like to leave their poo on prominent places, like on rockery stones or tree stumps. So I go round the garden regularly with a poo bag getting up all the turds before kids come out to play (we have foxes, hedgehogs and other people's cats visiting so there's usually something).

I have just used bark as a mulch on my raised beds and my cats are constantly trying to poo in there sadly 😭

Grass just use seed it'll be done by the summer!!

Unfortunately we’ve still got to clear and level the area so by the time that’s done, 8 weeks staying off of it will write off half the summer. We’re willing to put up with just dirt for this summer if needed though then turf/seed in the autumn to grow and establish over the winter.

Thankfully haven’t had any issues with poo so far apart from a couple in the front but of course don’t want to do anything to attract it!

@ShodAndShadySenators Gosh I hadn’t even thought of slugs! Yuck.

You don't have to stay off new turf for eight weeks, it roots a lot faster than that. I've photos of my new-laid lawn at the end of July and again on 19 August when I'd given it its first mowing. It's a lot less faffy than seeding and you'd need to make sure the seeds don't dry out and that birds don't eat the grass seed, which they will if they can.

Obviously it depends on what you need to do still to prepare the site, which only you know, but it's definitely what I would recommend. (My own lawn looked lovely back then, now it's full of moss which I suppose is nice and spongy at least!)

The advantage of turf over bark is that poos show up better on green turf than they do on brown bark, there is that...