5 Tips to bring more nature into your outdoor environment

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5 Tips to bring more nature into your outdoor
environment
https//www.giggletree.com.au/
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One of the biggest hurdles that a lot of
childcare centres have struggled with under the
new National Quality Standards, is to do with
making sure their outdoor environment has natural
elements. Some centres only have rubber or
synthetic surfaces throughout their playgrounds,
and it is hard to put permanent elements like
real grass or gardens in, because the plants root
system can't break through the rubber.  Getting
these surfaces ripped up and re-done can be a
very costly experience for owners, so if you are
looking for some ideas on how to bring nature to
your outdoor environment, on a low budget here
are 5 tips that might help you get started.
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Tip 1 -Tyre Garden/Veggie beds

• Using tyres as garden beds are a quick, easy and
  cheap way of setting up garden beds, these can be
  directly laid onto rubber or synthetic grass. 
  All you need is the following items and you can
  see if most of these items can be donated to the
  service.
• Tyres (either car or tractor tyres if you can get
  them)
• Black plastic (place this under the tyre)
• Soil
• Mulch
• Plants/Seedlings

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Tip 2 - Digging Patches

• Children love digging in the dirt, they also love
  creating things in the dirt patch like car
  tracks.  When looking at adding digging patches
  on rubber or synthetic grass surfaces then you
  need to look at what you could use to put the
  dirt in, you could use large tyres, large plastic
  containers or you could use large rocks to create
  an area to put the dirt on.  I would suggest if
  you are placing the dirt directly on the rubber
  or synthetic surface place plastic down first
  before you lay the dirt down.

Picture is from http//www.letthechildrenplay.net/

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Tip 3 - Loose parts

• Loose parts are a great way of bring more natural
  items into the playgrounds.  (For further
  information on loose parts see my earlier blog
  on loose parts).  You can add items to the
  outdoor environment like bricks, rocks, tree
  stumps, piping etc.

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Tip 4 - Hay Bales

• I have recently seen centres that buy hay bales
  and use them for all different ideas, they can be
  used as seating outside, as cubby house walls, as
  obstacles to climb over etc.  Once they start
  breaking down then you can add hay to your garden
  beds as mulch.

Picture is from http//www.letthechildrenplay.net/

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Tip 5 Vertical Gardens hanging baskets

• You can make vertical gardens from timber pallets
  or from old timber blinds. Other ideas are to get
  hanging baskets to either hang of your fence or
  hang down from you veranda roofs.  I recently
  went out and purchase a vertical wall garden from
  Bunnings all up with soil and plants it costs
  just under 70 dollars.

You could also check my facebook and pinterest pag
e.
A great resource to get more ideas from is Let
the Children Play their wedbsite
is http//www.letthechildrenplay.net/. 
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Contact us

• Email - Samantha_at_giggletree.com.au
• Call us - 07 3204 1102

http//giggletree.com.au/