Anyone have a swingset/playground?

[Go Blue]

Does anyone have a swingset or playground in their backyard? If so, what do you type of material do you have on the ground (grass, dirt, mulch, sand, etc.)? I have a 20'x20' area of dirt that I have the playground on now. I want to fill it with rubber/fake mulch, but since it is such a large area, it is very expensive. Any ideas?

[jkwest]

I live in the country, so, what was there before I built the playground is still there...maybe a bit more leaves and stuff, though...

[Blu-Benny]

we've just got a swingset on the grass in the yard. bumps & bruises are inevitable, no matter how cautious u are. my son is crawling and climbing on everything now (8 months) and always finds a way to add a new bump to his head. i'm kinda worried his skull is gonna be mishapen!!

[camper]

We just have it on the ground, we don't have anything on the ground. We considered cedar chips, but there are a lot of wasps & yellow jackets around and they can sometimes use that cover to create ground nests. We also thought about rubber mulch. It's really not that expensive--when you compare it to other things. Home Depot had the best price.

When it was all said and done, we decided against putting anything down. Rubber won't deteriorate, which means you'll have to clear it out when the playground goes away. And it WILL end up all over your yard. Cedar only looks good for a while, and smells like pee when it's wet. Sand will kill your lawn.

We weren't worried about protecting the little ones (like blu-benny said, scrapes are inevitable) but we wanted something nice to look at and for them to enjoy. Truth is the kids don't care what it looks like, and whatever you put down spells more work for you.

camper

[Go Blue]

Originally Posted by camper

We just have it on the ground, we don't have anything on the ground. We considered cedar chips, but there are a lot of wasps & yellow jackets around and they can sometimes use that cover to create ground nests. We also thought about rubber mulch. It's really not that expensive--when you compare it to other things. Home Depot had the best price.

When it was all said and done, we decided against putting anything down. Rubber won't deteriorate, which means you'll have to clear it out when the playground goes away. And it WILL end up all over your yard. Cedar only looks good for a while, and smells like pee when it's wet. Sand will kill your lawn.

We weren't worried about protecting the little ones (like blu-benny said, scrapes are inevitable) but we wanted something nice to look at and for them to enjoy. Truth is the kids don't care what it looks like, and whatever you put down spells more work for you.

camper

So you went with just dirt? I was only wanting to put something on top of the dirt to help with weed control and looks in general. What will be good for that?

[ground chuck]

we had one, but had to take it down b/c it became too unstable. the new one that i'm looking at is about $3k, for a vinyl covered set. i was also looking to use rubber mulching for my base. regular mulch needs to be re-filled every year.

rubber mulch can be a bit pricey depending on where you get it from, but it's soft and you're recycling.

[camper]

Originally Posted by schultz

So you went with just dirt? I was only wanting to put something on top of the dirt to help with weed control and looks in general. What will be good for that?

nononono...it's just set on top of the ground, nothing around it...no special prep. Just mow around it like you would anything else, and if you don't want to hit it with the weed whacker along the base or posts then spray round-up or some other weed killer where it's too hard to get the mower to. Depending on how thick your lawn is, you'll end up with wear spots from the end of the slide, under the swings, wherever the 'hot spots' are that get a lot of traffic.

camper