Small Wonders
In these playful spaces, kids can clamber, chase, hang, run, munch and hide
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 MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Maggi Johnson crafted the pebble mosaic "entry mat" at the base of the front steps, following the instructions in "The Pebble Mosaic Handbook" by Maggy Howarth. "We think of the spiral as the beginning of the 'yellow brick road' as we set out the door," says Johnson.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Johnson's 8-year-old twins, Finn and Anders Southerland, climb and swing from the inexpensive and endlessly adjustable ropes in their backyard play area. The ropes came from a marine-supply store.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Abandoned sneakers could belong to any of the many neighborhood kids who converge on the fort and climbing ropes in the Johnson backyard.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Simon Kidde reaches a cautious sneaker onto the ladder rung as he makes an exciting journey down from the tiki-hut playhouse.
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Hazel Ostrowski rides laps on her trike around a bricked track. The dish rock among the grasses is both visual focal point and perfect spot for splashing. Flat-topped rocks provide places to sit and climb. All this activity goes on in a small, safe place within view of the back door and kitchen window. |
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Maggi Johnson was catapulted into her specialty after the birth of her twins. Nothing like two little boys to turn someone into an expert at retrofitting gardens for active play. Johnson is adept at shoehorning forts, climbing ropes and trike tracks into postage-stamp-size backyards.
Her work proves that compact gardens can serve as safe, satisfying spaces for children while still pleasing parents. Which is why Johnson raised a tiki-hut playhouse up on stilts. Kids love climbing up and down, keeping occupied while developing coordination. Plus, there's space to squeeze a few plants under the hut.
The shady scrap of lawn in Amy Brim's Mount Baker garden did nothing to lure her three young kids outside to play. So she hired Johnson to inject a little fun into the yard. Johnson tore up an uneven old patio and reused the bricks to pave a circular trike track along the new patio. The garden's centerpiece is the tiki hut, a kid-magnet charming enough to use for a cocktail party with a short guest list. With its thatched roof, the hut sets a tropical atmosphere that is enhanced by big-leafed hostas and luxuriant canna lilies. The property has changed hands, and the new owner's children love riding 'round the brick track and climbing the fort's ladder as much as Brim's kids did.
Johnson's own garden is in what she calls the "Lakewood Holler" section of Seward Park. The house was built in 1912, and the garden was seriously overgrown. She tore out ivy and excavated buried junk to open up an area devoted to play.
How to keep 'em comin'
Water: Even if it's just a dish rock to catch the rain, or a birdbath to float a little boat, add some water. When children are a little older, so you don't have to worry about them falling in, pond life and water plants are endlessly fascinating.
Climbing trees or forts: Perhaps because they so often have to look up, kids adore climbing high enough to look down.
Flexibility: Children change so quickly in their capabilities and interests. Sand boxes can be converted into raised beds to grow herbs and vegetables; trike tracks edge beds even after children have quit riding; playhouses transform into tool sheds or studios.
Gravel: Kids love to move things around; gravel provides a good surface to excavate, pile up and shovel around.
Food: Nothing attracts children like food, and they can learn a valuable lesson about how fruits and vegetables grow. Picking sun-warmed tomatoes and berries may encourage kids to eat more healthfully.
Organics: In an organic garden where birds, bees, caterpillars and ladybugs are made welcome, and the soil is alive with worms, children tune into nature while learning about the interdependency of all creatures, including themselves.
Now the Johnson garden is a gathering place for neighborhood kids, the big attraction a wide web of ropes perfect for clambering on. Kids feel as daring as Spiderman scaling the heights, when they're actually a few feet off the ground in a securely fenced back corner of the garden.
Aromatic, textural, fast-growing and edible plants draw kids in for a close look at nature. Johnson minimizes permanent plantings to leave room for annuals and vegetables including sunflowers, nasturtiums and scarlet runner beans. The back garden is criss-crossed in summer with a green canopy dripping beans from vines grown along strings running between the garage and far fence.
In other gardens, Johnson uses raised beds for vegetables to encourage children to plant and harvest alongside their parents. Grapes, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries encourage grazing. Often a small circle of grass maximizes play space while minimizing lawn area. Kids need places to explore, so hazelnut pathways wind enticingly through the gardens.
However small the garden she designs, Johnson keeps in mind the principle of seven circles. The innermost ring is the extension of the house, then the circles graduate out to the countryside and finally the wilderness. She tries to bring a suggestion of all these possibilities to every garden she designs. Which is why in her gardens, both kids and parents find a little magic.
Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Mike Siegel is a Seattle Times staff photographer.
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