Creating the kids a play area

As I've said in my last few posts I've been pottering in the front garden to get a bit of a play area ready for the kids. It's been a bit of a wilderness area since we moved in and has a huge pine tree in the centre of it. This cuts out all of the light so nothing grows there, but it's the perfect area for a den. What kid doesn't want a little secret area to play in? Let's be honest though, I don't want it too secret, when the kids are older I don't want any unauthorised UFC matches being held. So I cut back the little branches that were coming up from the bottom of the trees (they're sure to have a proper name, but hell I don't know it).

Here's a picture of the area before we moved all the debris back.

This is how it looks from the lawn, you can see what I mean by a bit of a hidey hole.

We moved all the fallen pine needles and weeds that had come up over the years. The area was partially covered in weed membrane, so rather than waste it (save the planet!) we put it aside to put down again. We levelled the area as best we could and put down the membrane again along with some new along the edges.

Look at this root that had grown right through the membrane, amazing!

James had called a few local tree surgeons and one kindly brought us a tipper truck full of wood chip. Next came the job of shovelling. The pile of chip just smelled divine, just as I'd imagine Sweden must smell (sort of like fresh pine). I spent a few evenings moving the pile and the guy brought us a second load to cover the whole area. It's about a foot deep but it'll compress and it's got some leaf in which will decompose. He's promised me one more load of chipping to put down around the veg bed.

Lots of fun being had

I'd like to edge it eventually with some railway sleepers or something similar to keep the chip in place but there's no hurry for that, we'll wait until the budget stretches to that. I forgot to take a complete picture before little man's birthday present arrived, it's a playhouse with slide, so that's what all the packages are. His birthday isn't until Autumn but we thought he may as well get plenty of use out of it this summer.

Area all covered just need to level off