Tell Homebase how you will get your kids in the garden over the summer - £300 voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[EmmaMumsnet]

It’s a common worry that our DC don’t spend enough time outside, especially with teens glued to their phones and toddlers insisting on watching their favourite movie for the 1000th time. Homebase would like to find out how you will encourage your DC to get out in the garden this summer.

Here’s what Homebase has to say: "No matter how big or small your garden is, you want to create a haven that can be enjoyed by your family all year round, especially in the summer months. You don't have to be a professional gardener to plan your own landscape, which is why we have put together useful advice guides and top tips containing plenty of garden ideas to give you the inspiration you need to begin.”

So how will you get your DC in the garden this summer? Will you get them to help you plant fruit and veg so they can get excited watching them grow? Perhaps you’d like to recreate activities you did in the garden when you were a child? If it rains will you be determined to stay outside and play games in a shelter or craft decorations that can be put in the garden when it’s dry again?

Whether you want to create a play haven by building a mini playground or make the perfect space for eating alfresco please post your ideas and plans below and you will be entered into the prize draw where one lucky MNer will win a £300 Homebase voucher.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

We moved the router so the wifi signal reaches the garden. Now the teenage DCs will happily sit out there for hours on social media but in the fresh air .

My kids love being in the garden, especially when some form of water activity is out there. At the moment we have a mat that you attach the hosepipe to which sprays water in the air that they love running through. The difficulty is normally ensuring they don't get burnt and getting them back inside!

I'm not in my comfort zone in the outside world but I'm trying to set a good example to my kids so I'm aiming to spend at least half an hour each week doing some form of gardening and at least 20 mins outside each day playing with them. They love playing with water so I've bought lots of water balloons and squirters and draw targets on the fence with chalk. I also play a game where I write a letter of a word and the order it comes in over different places in the garden and they need to find it for example teddy t=1 and might be written on a chair e=2 and might be written on the patio d=3 and might be written on the fence. I plan to buy some pots and get them to help plant some things and they have already made a "bug hotel" of their own, we also search for all the different insects we can find, we found a moth chrysalis a few weeks ago and watched it emerge which was fascinating

Last year our garden was just weeds, but this year my DP has been out creating beautiful wild flower beds and planting trees with my daughter.

This weekend he's digging a vegetable patch to get my daughter (2) excited about growing her own vegetables!

Watching her get so excited about the garden and getting involved is great

Having just moved to a house with a garden: it needs re doing as it's mainly a mud pit at the moment however we love having the bubble machine in the garden and having fun popping them

DD doesn't need any encouragement, she's always outside. In the Summer we eat all our meals out in the garden too. She loves having picnics on the lawn.

Sand pit! My 16 month old is obsessed! I'm also planning to build a mud kitchen... not entirely sure how to do this though...

sand/waterpit always gets them out. water balloons and water blasters are also a hit

I try to set up the garden with lots of different things to do (we are lucky to have the space though). So: trampoline, climbing frame, paddling pool, badminton net, sprinkler if the weather is good. We're hoping to camp soon if the weather stays nice!

Easy, WATERSLDE!

We get through loads of chalk. They like drawing goal posts on the wall to aim at, parking spaces on the ground to put their bikes and scooters in or hopscotch grids. When it's really hot they like to get sponges and big buckets of waster and wash it all away when they are done!

my kids enjoy helping me in the garden, as a reward they get the pool out

Paddling pool and sandpit definitely. There's not much better for mine than sand unless they can mix water with the sand and make a gloopy mess everywhere.....

GIVE THEM I SPY BOOKS ON BIRDS , BUTTERFLIES , INSECTS AND FLOWERS. THEY REALLY ENJOY

My toddler loves the garden. We have a large sandpit and slide, and lots of outdoor games. We have started a small herb garden for him to look after and next we want to get some storage for the outdoor toys so we can rotate them to keep variety!

My girls love the garden, they love having little jobs to do such a watering or planting up their own pots.

ours loved it outside - mud pies, paddling pools, helping with planting and watering - as long as we joined in too

My Dc's have a huge wooden play house in the garden that they play in for hours it even has real flowers in the flower boxes which they water and take care of . We have a huge electric awning that goes over the patio so when it is raining we can open it out and still sit in the garden and play games so I don't have any problems with my kids playing in the garden because they love being out there with the dogs aswell

a football always works....but thinking of getting swingball this summer....

We've created a nice environment with areas to sit and to play.

Open the patio door and they are usually straight out!

We have a water play table, section of the garden where they have planted seeds and their own gardening tools. Also the usual footballs, skipping ropes, hula hoops etc.

They have outside crayons and we move an easel outside if they are feeling more creative.

We have a smallish living room so I love it on days when it is warm enough for them to be outside.

we have grown sunflower for the past 2 years, and as they grow so quickly my DC finds it magical how such large flower can grow from such small beginnings. By doing this we look after the flowers as it grows, watering, tying canes to the stem as it grows taller, and measures the flower as it grows. In the summer in the garden we watch the insects which come to pollinate the flower.

No encouragement needed there. She always wants to be outside when the weather is nice, particularly if we play games together

we have a little greenhouse where we grow some bedding pants and tomatoes. When the time is right we plant our bedding flowers around the border of our garden. My DC has a little watering can and we water the tomato plants and the bedding plants in the summer, and if we are lucky see some pretty butterflies paying the plants a visit. My DC has picked some flower solar lights to put between the flowers.

Play some outdoor games together