MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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We have quite a big climbing frame, two towers, swings etc and it is a pain to maintain the grass, mow around it and keep it tidy. Has anyone used sand as a base? If so how much maintainance does it take?
Will sand not attract the local cat population to use it as a litter try?
Any cats in the neighborhood? You might just create an enormous litter tray...
edit: oops, crossed post
Have you looked at the rubber chips?
We were always going to do that and put down the anti-weed layer but it's still covered in small shingle... (which is what was there before and carrying it away never got done).. Now the kids 7 and frequently falls off his bike on single track, falling a few feet off the swing or climbing frame onto the shingle seems fairly minor 😀
Anyhow... we'd planned the rubber chips as it attracts less cat/fox poo than sand!
oops: triple posted except adding fox poo
Sand will just get kicked/transported all over the garden and house.
Falling onto wet sand is like hitting concrete too.
Woodchips might be better? A decent depth has a reasonable amount of give in it and will drain well too.
Hmmn, not keen on the sound of that. Would the rubber bark not have the sam effect, except for being invisible?
As per Bruce, if you have lots of cats locally, don't. Use fake grass or those soft rubber tiles.
If you have no cats locally a properly prepared sand area (gravel for drainage plus weed membrane underneath and properly boxed/edged) should only take about 10 minutes a month to deal with, if that. And a fresh 10 kilo bag or two of sand once a quarter or so depending on how much use it gets (the sand gets kicked out of the box on a regular basis.).
Depending on how much garden there is and what it's like, a bit of sand won't do any harm. You could barely see the sand in the grass once it'd been rained on and/or mowed once or twice.
We used "playground grade wood chips" for our garden. The rubber stuff is great but worked out about 3 times the cost.
RoSPA (yes, really) has a great section on play area ground coverings designed for Local Authority use. It's a great resource.
Thanks all, food for thought.
How about some artificial grass?
Might be an option jondoh, I am looking at all avenues.
Family of 6 with 4 kids, had a really big frame so used woodchips with a border about half a foot high. Only thing is a strimmer needs using for that edge next to grass. Lasted roughly 13 years before it all got removed.
We used playground bark - not all bark/chips are the same, the playground stuff is softer and there's more give in case of a fall.