Safe Plants for Play Spaces: Plants that are Perfect for Play

It is wonderful for children to spend lots of time outside playing in the garden, and it’s even better when they can play with their garden! 

Including safe plants for play in your garden, whether it be at home, preschool or an early childhood service, is a great way to encourage kids to be outside – playing, interacting and learning with nature.

Before planning what to plant you’ll need to consider if your children have any allergies or are sensitive to pollens. You also need to avoid plants with large spikes or prickles and make sure that what you plant is not poisonous. Think about all parts of the plant, leaves, roots, sap, berries, etc  and always check Google for a list of poisonous plants common to your area.

Allowing kids to play with plants will also mean setting a few ground rules in the beginning and including children in the planting and care of the garden is a great way for them to learn to respect plants. Even very young children can be encouraged to follow a few simple rules. Start with;

• Take only a few of the flowers or leaves for play from a plant (as opposed to stripping the whole plant)
• Only take from safe plants within the designated play area. When playing in other spaces, remind students that natural items should only be collected from the ground and not picked from living plants
• Check before picking and eating produce from edible plants.

Safe Plants for Play Spaces

Below are some suggestions of what to plant in your playful garden. These are starting points only, to get you thinking! Ask local plant enthusiasts and garden nursery staff for more suggestions to best suit your location and climate.

Vines and Creepers


Including some hardy vines and creepers in your garden will provide an endless supply of crowns and necklaces for playing at kings, fairies and the like.

Try Star Jasmin
 or Hardenbergia/Coral Pea


.

Scented Plants


My children spend endless hours in our back yard concocting potions from plants, water, dirt and goodness knows what else! 


Plants with an interesting scent from flowers or leaves are always lots of fun in potions.
 Try Mint (grows like a weed so the kids can pick as much as they like), Lavender and 
Pineapple Sage, Dill and Rosemary

.

Plants with Flowers

Making daisy chains or just picking a bunch of flowers to brighten someone’s day is a simple, lovely way for children to interact with the garden.

Choose hardy flowering perennials that take little maintenance and annuals that easily self seed each Spring. 
Suggestions include:

• Perennials – Daisies and Geraniums
• Self seeding annuals – Cosmos, Forget Me Nots, Calendula, Zinnia, Marigold, Nasturtiums and Borage

Plants You Can Eat

There is no better way to teach children where food comes from than by growing it yourself. Choose easy to grow fruit or veggies that you know your children enjoy, beginning with those your kids can eat right of the plant for fast snacking while playing.
 Suggestions include:

• Cherry tomatoes
• Sugar snap peas
• Beans
• Strawberries
• Lettuce

You can find more kid friendly food garden ideas here.

Weird, Wonderful Plants

It’s always fun to plant a few strange and interesting things if you have the space. Weird and wonderful plants can spark a child’s imagination and provide a little extra magic to the garden.

Gourds come in lots of strange shapes and sizes and you can dry them to make all kinds of interesting things.


Succulents are available in lots of interesting colours, shapes and textures – choose non-spiny varieties like Echeveria, Hens and Chicks (Sempervivum) and Christmas Cactus. Aloe Vera is safe for children, though it is toxic to cats and dogs. 

And for a real novelty, Popping Corn is lots of fun, allowing children to grow and pop their own corn!

RELATED: Discover How to Make a Child-Friendly Fairy Garden

Plants You Can Hide In

A cubby house is one of the best backyard play areas you can invest in but if you don’t have one you can always grow one! 
As simple as a circle of sunflowers or a creeper growing over an arched tunnel, hiding among the plants is lots of fun. You could try:

• 
Giant Sunflowers – plant in a circle to make a hiding spot
• Climbing Beans – set up a teepee support and grow a bean cubby
• Vines and Creepers – build an arched tunnel and grow evergreen creepers over it for a more permanent cubby house

No Garden? No Problem

Even if you don’t have a garden, many of the smaller, playful plants will grow in pots on a window sill or balcony so there is no reason why everyone can’t enjoy playing with plants!