BE CREATIVE BUT KEEP YOUR LAWN MAINTENANCE IN MIND
Nowadays families across your city are rediscovering their backyards as wonderful places to hang out. They are using it as a place to spend time with family and friends, grill some food, and even play a quick game of badminton.
They are relaxing and enjoying their landscaping while making lasting memories. Their children are laughing and playing in the backyard and it feels like their house is actually home all thanks to utilizing their green lawn efficiently.
ENJOY YOUR BACKYARD
Don’t hold back when it comes to using your yard. Create a nice space where the adults can relax while still being able to watch the children and/or pets play on the grass. Be creative and use play areas that contain more than a pile of unused kids’ toys. Yes, by thinking outside the box you can stimulate your child’s imagination with your backyard.
As local landscapers, we’ve seen it all. Take for example clients who use their rock garden and fill it with pea gravel. This always draws the kids to start digging and playing.
Maybe you should take a moment before you start the new deck project and think about how might be able to creatively integrate a slide that lands on a soft children’s sand pit.
As we like to remind our lawn care clients, children grow up quickly. Therefore keep the future of your yard in mind when designing and imagining ideas. Think in terms of conversion rather than replacing what you have. There is a difference.
For example, perhaps you build a playhouse that can eventually turn into a future tool shed. Or what if the sandbox the little kids enjoy now can be turned into a garden later when they are older?
FAMILY-FRIENDLY LAWN SPACE
A family-friendly landscaping environment calls for an open, level area where people can stretch their feet out and play games and practice sports. The best type of ground for this is as flat a lawn as you can create. You may even decide to install a concrete base of some kind in order to play some sports.
Unless you are one of those ultra-competitive few who absolutely insist on playing by the rules, most backyard lawn games only require a flat area that is relatively free of obstacles.
We’re sure you’ve seen that. Backyards where families and friends play volleyball, and badminton, or put some golf balls around. This is all thanks to a flat lawn space.
USE YOUR GRASS WISELY
A lawn area for games requires good drainage. If you already have a lawn, who’s the most level area available? If you’re starting from scratch, grade and area so that it crowns in the center and pictures to where the edges are – this will create the fairest playing conditions for competitive games.
Do your own due diligence but as lawn care experts, we recommend a minimum elevation change of about 1/4 inch per foot of horizontal distance for lawns and any unpaved surfaces.
If you are dealing with paved surfaces (they drain more easily) a 1/8-inch elevation change per foot will work.
Amazingly, with some imagination, you can create a backyard golf course where you can chip the ball out of a garden, over your kid’s sandbox and the garden pool, onto a perfectly level golf green.
Happy gardening!
