Whether they are whole gardens or smaller spaces within them, the great outdoors should be a place where children can let their imaginations run wild

When, as part of the research for the RHS State of Gardening Report 2025, market researcher and data analyst YouGov and the Royal Horticultural Society asked 1,065 children why they garden, 87 per cent of them said it was because it was an opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends, to enjoy the calm of nature, and to have fun outside. Seventy-four per cent of them also said gardening made them happy and 80 per cent of them said they gardened at home, or at the home of a relative or a friend.

Gardening, said the report’s authors, ‘is a powerful way for generations to connect, with grandparents, parents and carers passing on knowledge, stories and a love of growing’.

They also added that ‘Gardens are more than just places to play. They’re living classrooms’1.

While few would deny the latter point, it is surely to our children’s detriment if we underestimate the importance and power of play in outdoor spaces. 

Going back to the RHS report, it states that 45 per cent of the children questioned said that bad weather stops them from gardening, and 28 per cent simply find it boring. How might those figures change if they were given the freedom to just go outside and play? The researchers found that for the seven-year-olds, the most important thing in their dream garden would be a treehouse or play area and secret hideout, and for the 16-year-olds it would be a cosy relaxation spot. 

‘I think we’ve become a little bit preoccupied with children learning horticulture when first of all, they’ve got to enjoy themselves outside and they’ve got to play,’ says garden designer Victoria Stanton, a pre-registered member of the Society of Garden + Landscape Designers.

‘Play is rooted in nature,’ she continues. ‘If you talk to your parents or grandparents about how and where they used to play as children, more often than not they recall how they were always outside and used to climb trees and build dens, run through woodlands and hide in the long grass, and that’s so relatable and really emotive. People have such happy memories of simply playing in nature so I say let’s not proscribe our children before they’ve had those experiences.’

Use your imagination
Victoria’s design for a raised border, A Place for Play, which won first prize in the Garden Makers Competition at this year’s Royal Windsor Flower Show, epitomises her determination to create gardens that are places that allow for and stimulate creative imagination, fun, and the making of memories.

Designed as a miniature adventure playground for a child’s toy, the 4.9 by 8.2 feet (1.5 by 2.5 metres) border was packed with features that could be built on the same one-in-six scale within a family garden or be scaled up and, using the same plant scheme, be a space in which children themselves could play.

‘The space was one that a child could commandeer within their own garden, somewhere they could create their own magical world for their toy, be it a Barbie or a Lego piece, a dinosaur, a teddy bear or anything,’ Victoria explains. ‘Their toy could wend its way through the grasses or pretend it is jumping off a rock, or sitting on a log, or jumping across the stepping stones and hiding in the den, and so on.’ 

At the same time, she introduced elements into the border that would help a child understand what a garden needs to survive – pollinator-friendly plants, water, lots of shade, and dead wood – and to help regulate the space and introduce a note of calm, she included a hammock (‘I printed the fabric using the ancient Japanese botanical printing technique of Tataki zomé, or hammer dyeing’), and a gate. ‘That doesn’t really need to be there,’ says Victoria, ‘but there’s something about going through a gate that allows you to pretend you’re entering another world: “Welcome to my home!”.’

MORE TOP TIPS FOR MAGICAL PLAY SPACES

• ‘Children love trampolines so if they are a non-negotiable client request, make a feature of it; we have a seating circle around ours so I can sit comfortably while I watch my children jump around.’
• ‘Think about the sounds in the garden and how children might include them in their play – a silent landscape has no life so I think about flowing or trickling water, grasses that swish as you move through them, surfaces that crunch as you walk over them (and make you think about your balance), and don’t forget the creepy crawlies aka the hum of bees and chirping of grasshoppers amongst the planting.’
• ‘Keep existing trees, plant more trees – they’re good for building a base camp, for forest bathing, for creating privacy and helping people to feel safe; we need them for shade in summer and if they’re deciduous, they’ll let light through in winter, and if they have multi-stems, they’re good for climbing; berries and roosting opportunities will bring in the birds. You can never have too many trees.’ 
• ‘Children love to play on monkey bars and zip lines but they can only take one child at a time; that teaches them to queue and to take turns, but a pyramid-style climbing frame with lots of different ways to go up and down it will give them even more to think about.’

Natural beauty and inclusive function
There are stepping stones so you can cross the river full of crocodiles. Or is it a sitting circle for when friends come round to tea and play a game of musical chairs? Or, who can jump up to the highest one? 

‘I included the ring of wood stumps to further regulate the layout, as the hammock does, and because a curved shape tends to encourage conversation that flows, but the feature is open-ended and inclusive – play doesn’t have to make sense and the children will use them however they want to.’

She also included a small log (‘in full-sized gardens I use tree trunks sourced from a tree-surgeon friend’), the natural, sculptural appearance of which punctuates the planting and acts as a backdrop for the small plants growing up against and around it. ‘If I was to put in a manmade structure or feature, such as a child-sized aeroplane,’ says Victoria, ‘only one child can sit in that, but put in a large log and more children can play together; they can pretend to be in the aeroplane together, on a boat, in a train, sit on it, jump over it, anything; the natural wood is beautiful and inexpensive, and it also creates habitats for wildlife.’

Similarly, the teepee was simply made using twigs of birch that Victoria and her family collected while foraging one afternoon. ‘The children loved it, it was like a treasure hunt, and it’s such an easy structure to make, whether for a toy or for a child, and they can make it themselves, limited only by their imagination – there’s so much more pride in something they’ve done without their parents’ help.’

USEFUL RESOURCES
All Green, all-green.co.uk, provided self-binding gravel and boulders in kind for Victoria’s show border

Creepers Nursery, creepersnursery.co.uk, sponsor of and main plant supplier to the Garden Makers Competition

Newlands Corner, visitsurrey.com/listing/newlands-corner/40472101/ – Victoria recommends the play area in this nature reserve in the Surrey Hills as ‘a great example of how to use timber elements as a prompt for play’

Victoria Stanton, victoriasprout.com

Magical planting
Victoria’s plant selection is not one you will find in most plant finders but there was method in her choices, and all of them were safe for children, who might pick a leaf or frond to make a bandage, harvest a seedhead or pluck petals and berries to feed to their pet dinosaur, or lie down on a clump of something to stare up at the passing clouds. 

‘I went with part shade-loving plants because, ideally, if you’re going to have an area where children are going to play, you want some natural cover to protect them from the sun. A lot of the plants – ferns, grasses, and a couple of Hachonechloas, which made my show border feel quite jungly but had lots of texture – could be translated into a larger garden if you wanted to but instead of having a couple of everything, you’d have lots.’

Grasses with dainty little seeds that shimmer and twinkle will spread like fairy dust over the jungle, and herbs such as Mentha requienii, Mentha ‘Berries and Cream’, Origanum vulgarum ‘Nanum’ and Petroselinum crispum var. neapolitanum are perfect for making potions – ‘Who hasn’t made a witch’s potion at some point in their life?!’. 

Talking to Victoria, it is clear she had a huge amount of fun herself, playing with her border design – ‘I wanted it to be a playful space and I wanted to have fun thinking about it and making it; I even stitched the sign myself and I haven’t done needlework since school but what I was trying to do was show how we can design fun spaces into residential settings that will bring natural or outdoor magic into the lives of children, and their parents, without them even realising it.’

Design is important, she stresses – ‘I want to show how wildness can be beautiful and fun’: putting in some stepping stones or a tree trunk so children can look forward to playing on and around them on their way to school; choosing plants so they can notice the bees and the butterflies; and of course, planting trees so their canopies become a welcome place beneath which to meet, play, and chatter. ‘It’s about using playfulness in design, especially in those public transition spaces, particularly routes to schools and in parks and greens, but also in school playgrounds as well as private gardens.’

Words, Arabella St John Parker  Photographs, (show border) Julie Skelton; (fallen tree in Petworth Park) Victoria Stanton

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