The Problem

Although this garden looks like a fun place for small kids, it needs some sort of theme to make it more exciting and to give it some style. The main aim was to create a child-friendly area with a space-age theme. This involved replacing the old slides and swings with a tunnel, and space-inspired shapes. Also the patio was to be replaced with some funky modern decking and the whole garden was to be given a colour scheme.

The Angel's Solution

Firstly, the garden was cleared. Some of the lawn was removed with a turf-cutter and the area was levelled. Then the Angels got to work constructing the new rectangular deck to cover the existing patio. Decking boards were attached with a nail-gun onto a timber sub-frame.

A wooden retainer for the children's zone was marked out, cut and placed, and secured with retainer pegs. The kids' tunnel frame was created out of lightweight rubber-coated wire poles which were pushed into ground then joined together to form an archway for the tunnel body. This was then covered with white gauze membrane to form the tunnel walls.

Another membrane was put in place to avoid future weed problems, and various silvery plants were planted. Focus was definitely on the silver and white look, in order to add to the space-age theme. Flowers in this category included artemesisa, convolvulus and garya elliptica.

A large quantity of blue rubber mulch was then emptied onto the main children's areas around the planting. This mulch was made from shredded, recycled tyres, which are then dyed blue. Very unique and effective!

The Angels wanted to create lots of fun playground features for the kids. Holes were dug out for posts to support plywood circles for the kids to crawl through. Three solar and lunar plywood cut-outs were made using a circular saw, which were then sanded down (to make them child-safe) and painted yellow, and then erected in a line on timber poles.

The surrounding fence was painted in two colours - black and sky blue, which looked fab and continued the space-age theme.

Finally the garden was complete, the Angels had worked their magic and Allison and the kids were in for a big surprise. As well as being every kids dream, the decking and the colour scheme ensured the garden was also very stylish.

For advice on where to find materials used in the series see Stockist List for Gardening Angels 2.