Leigh Bramwell: A garden for everyone is child's play

Well-crafted monkey bars can be integrated into a garden of tough plants for a good-looking kids' garden.

Secret spots, swings and monkey bars will delight the young — and they may even give you a turn

Once, the sight of my refrigerator festooned with brightly coloured plastic letters of the alphabet would have driven me mad. I would at the very least have had to sort the letters into groups according to their colour, but my preference would have been to chuck them all in the rubbish.

So as you can imagine, incorporating child-friendly elements into the garden has not been high on my list of landscaping improvements.

But if I'm to discourage small people from ripping the heads off the camellias and trying to get the dog to eat them, I will need to develop some elements that children may enjoy while the adults do the things they enjoy, which is sipping summer wine and dangling their feet in the water feature.

I've often heard people say they're waiting until their kids are grown up before developing the ultimate urban oasis, but don't deny yourself the pleasure of a lovely garden when you can have outdoor living spaces that accommodate all ages.

When I started dreaming up ideas to entertain my great niece and nephew, I found myself approaching the project with enthusiasm.

Luckily my inner child is quite close to the surface, and I've always hankered for a swing, hopscotch, monkey bars and a tree hut in the garden. All can be constructed from attractive natural materials, so there's no need for the red, blue and yellow plastic that wrecks an elegant garden design.

Wooden vintage garden swing.

If building is not on your list of skills, no problem. Auckland garden designer Debby Lewis reckons mystery is the most important element in kids' gardens. Instead of making a jungle gym, create places where kids can hide, such as a short hedge or an evergreen tree clipped into a pillar shape with a small hiding place inside.

Winding paths that lead to secret spots where there are other-worldly plants or sculptures will also give children a sense of adventure when exploring the garden.

I've discovered that kids love water -- and anything else that's wet, dangerous and messy -- so a shallow water feature near where the adults congregate is an idea. We have a small concrete pond in our courtyard and visiting kids delight in floating the pumice sculpture in there and then climbing in to get it out again. An expedition to the local garden centre to buy two goldfish is planned, which may result in the pond taking on a different dynamic when I tell them the fish are piranhas.

Debby also suggests a tree house or a play hut. We didn't have such a thing when I was a kid but our neighbour, a short-tempered French woman, had a tin henhouse on the boundary, and she was even shorter-tempered when she discovered my brother had cut us a secret door in the side so we could have club meetings in there.

If you don't have a French neighbour with a henhouse, buy one of the many stylish designs available either as kitsets or prefabs, or have a go at building one yourself. Choosing materials that complement your architecture and garden structures will help to integrate the playhouse into the existing environment. When your kids or grandkids grow out of it, use it as a henhouse or a dog kennel.

One thing all garden designers agree on is that children don't like to be excluded, so don't think you can locate their stuff miles away from the adult area. They'll continually trail out from wherever you've put them and kick the legs of your outdoor table while you're trying to pour the wine. Put some good-looking gear -- a swing, a climbing frame, a game of draughts -- nearby, and you may even be allowed to have a turn when they're not using it.

Robust plants tough it out in kids play areas

If you want to plant around a kids' area, you'll need varieties that are robust but not prickly.

Flax, astelia, griselinia and coprosma will stand a good deal of rough and tumble before they turn up their toes, and grasses planted in clumps will provide great spots for rolling and tumbling.

Other good choices are banksia, grevillea and daisies, and bird of paradise and echeveria are very mysterious and other-worldly. And it's hard to find a child who is not amazed by a sunflower.

Mass plant in clumps rather than rows or borders and if one or two of your plants succumb to a bit of rough treatment, the gaps are less obvious and the plants easily replaced.

For lawn, choose a variety that's tough and fast growing.

Alternatively, you could plant creeping thyme, lawn chamomile and lawn mint. They're fairly robust and the lawn mint releases its scent when tramped on.

If you want to grow a vegetable that kids might get interested in, zucchini is your baby. They're very speedy and enough happens along the way for a bit of intrigue. The flowers are flashy and are followed at record speed by tiny zucchini. A bit of TLC and they'll double in size just about every day.

Let kids choose their favourite colours -- yellow, green, purple -- plant them about a metre apart into a slightly raised, well-composted bed, and mulch. Get the youngsters watering them regularly and spray with a teaspoon of baking soda in 600ml of water if they start showing signs of powdery mildew.