How should I build a border for mulch around this playground?
by allowableearth
How should I build a border for mulch around this playground?
by allowableearth
2 Comments
You don’t have to, but you’re going to get dead spots under the swings and at the bottom of the slide.
They also sell mats or you can get the ones used for horse stalls.
You need to dig first. If you just lay lumber on the grass the mulch will spill everywhere and the wood will shift out of place. Dig out a shallow trench outlining the play area and make sure it extends at least six feet out from the swings and slide for a safe fall zone. Drop pressure treated 4×4 timbers into that trench so they sit flush with the lawn on the outside and pin them down with eighteen inch rebar. That locks the frame into the earth and creates a structural wall to hold the thick layer of playground wood chips you need.
Do not build a rigid square box around it. Sweep the boundary in a wide gentle curve to blend with the rest of the yard. That creates visual calm and makes pushing a mower around the edge a breeze instead of a chore. Since getting the shape and material right is hard to picture you should run a photo of your yard through the GardenDream web app. It lets you lay out the playground border and test different mulches right on your screen so you have a solid blueprint before you start hauling heavy timber and wasting a weekend.
Make sure you use certified playground safety chips and not that cheap dyed landscape mulch. You also need to put down heavy duty commercial weed fabric over the bare dirt inside your frame before the chips go in. That stops the underlying soil from swallowing all your expensive playground mulch the second a heavy rain hits.