Playground Mats - for a very muddy garden
Discussion
I live in a wet part of the country, where we're lucky to get 30 days without rain a year. To add to things the back garden is at the bottom of a slope and under the grass is a clay soil which takes forever to dry out.
So 10 months of the year you can't walk on the grass without sliding/sinking/churning up the grass, hence the reason most of my garden is slabbed/decked.
So what did my wife do for my boys birthday, plonk a big swing/climbing frame thing (aprox 4mx3m) on the grassed area...and there isn't anywhere else for it to go.
I don't want my kids being unable to use this thing most of the year so I'm needing to do something.
I don't want to spend a fortune in putting in land drains/digging out the clay soil and replacing with top soil and to be honest I'm looking for the easyest and cheepest option avalable.
I was thinking of making a deck frame a few inches off the grass and covering it with plywood with holes bored in it putting rubber mats on the ply and sitting the thing on that, but don't know where to get the stuff from?
Plus if anyone else has a solution (other than move) I'd be happy to hear it.
So 10 months of the year you can't walk on the grass without sliding/sinking/churning up the grass, hence the reason most of my garden is slabbed/decked.
So what did my wife do for my boys birthday, plonk a big swing/climbing frame thing (aprox 4mx3m) on the grassed area...and there isn't anywhere else for it to go.
I don't want my kids being unable to use this thing most of the year so I'm needing to do something.
I don't want to spend a fortune in putting in land drains/digging out the clay soil and replacing with top soil and to be honest I'm looking for the easyest and cheepest option avalable.
I was thinking of making a deck frame a few inches off the grass and covering it with plywood with holes bored in it putting rubber mats on the ply and sitting the thing on that, but don't know where to get the stuff from?
Plus if anyone else has a solution (other than move) I'd be happy to hear it.
Sorry, I was away at the weekend and forgot when I posted that I'd have no internet access all weekend.
I'm in the West of Scotland which seems to take the brunt of every weather front comming in off the Atlantic.
Your raised area looks good, is that just a decked area with rubber matts on top?
I'm in the West of Scotland which seems to take the brunt of every weather front comming in off the Atlantic.
Your raised area looks good, is that just a decked area with rubber matts on top?
Carl_Spackler said:
Sorry, I was away at the weekend and forgot when I posted that I'd have no internet access all weekend.
I'm in the West of Scotland which seems to take the brunt of every weather front comming in off the Atlantic.
Your raised area looks good, is that just a decked area with rubber matts on top?
Aha, even wetter than South Wales then!!I'm in the West of Scotland which seems to take the brunt of every weather front comming in off the Atlantic.
Your raised area looks good, is that just a decked area with rubber matts on top?
Actually even simpler than that! We merely built a retaining frame and then levelled the ground. The area under the trampoline is grass, while the area on the right we put a layer of gravel, and then the mats.
The matting came from a company I worked for at the time...so was fortunate to get as "samples"...
http://www.equimat.co.uk/
The mats were a playmat version of the horsey ones, and after c.10 years outside show little or no wear/degradation.
hth
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