We have talked about the potential for the garden to provide a dynamic and stimulating environment for the entire age spectrum. Add this to what we have traditionally prioritised in our outside space and you have what seems to an irreconcilable cacophany of design imperatives. Modern garden design attempts to pack a lot in. The planting is dense, the structural elements dominant and complicated.
We look to the garden to provide so much; immersion in the natural, rest and relaxation, inspiration, therapy, play. This is quite an array of requirements. We look to the garden for so much but seem to be willing to invest so little. The bathroom performs a finite role in our lives yet perennially seems to be an area on which we are perfectly prepared to lavish disproportionately vast resources.
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| We don’t need them to re enact Lord of the Flies, our kids just need to spend a bit more time outdoors |
We exhort our kids outside in the belief that it is some magical realm wherein they will be imbued with skills and wisdom which are unavailable indoors. It’s a laudable idea but it won’t happen magically anymore. Our kids need to be cajoled. If you want your kids outside you need to take care of your piece of the outside. Give your garden as much thought as you gave the colour of the feature wall in the living room. The garden will reward you in more ways than that wall ever could.
It’s about apportioning value to all the things that we look to our garden to provide. A new guest bathroom with all the bling to impress the dinner party guests will cost you at least €5,000.00. The latest incarnation of the kitchen with the marble counter and brushed nickel fixtures cost €10,000.00 and, watch this space, that same kitchen will be reincarnated a few more times before you’re finished. Most of us wouldn’t dream of spending that kind of money in the garden. Why is that?
My sister bought fifteen beautiful perennials last weekend and planted them alongside the path to her front door. On the same shopping trip she bought a new lamp for the table in the living room. Not one visitor to her house since has noticed the plants but everyone noticed the lamp. Why?
A new X Box One is €400.00. That €400.00 would go a long way towards providing a dynamic, wholesome and interactive play element in the garden. Kids no longer have the propensity of old to go out and engage, the sad reality is that they need coaxing into doing so. The attractions need to be provided. It’s not good enough to bemoan our kids lack of resourcefulness while unquestioningly supplying them with everything the Play Station marketing department want us to. Our kids have changed, the environment has changed. It is churlish and unfair to expect our kids today to embrace the lifestyle of fadó, fadó.
During school holidays nine year old Jimmy will no longer head out the back door in the morning and re appear at tea time. We need to start embracing this reality and stop mythologising the 1980s and running our kids down for their lack of inventiveness. If we want them outside we have to provide the sort of dynamic environment that will attract them. Transfer your average annual investment in console paraphernalia to the garden and you’ve made a great start. We have spoken about the potential benefits of designing for the entire age spectrum, well this is where it starts.
The reality is that we are becoming an urbanised nation of smaller families. The naturalised play and educational opportunities of yore either don’t exist any more or have, rightly or wrongly, been removed as an option. Are we happy to look to Netflix and Nintendo to fill the void? We need to step up, so get yourself out the back and have a good look around. There’s so much you can do. Do what you wish your kids would do more often; use your imagination.
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