An important part of any parent’s role is to ensure that the home is a safe and secure environment for the whole family. This includes the garden. While you might not think of your garden as particularly fraught with danger, there are some risks that, over time, can become dangerous if you don’t take the right kind of care of it.
As such, we’re going to look at a few ways you can help keep the garden safe for all of the family, outlining some of the risks and the strategies you can use to deal with them.
Make sure any dips or steps are visible
If you have things like raised beds, patios, or areas of the garden that aren’t level to the other, then you need to make sure that any steps are clearly marked to avoid the possibilities of slips, trips, and falls. Outdoor lighting can help you make your garden look a lot more vibrant, but it can also play a key role in making steps more visible at night when they are more likely to prove a hazard. Toddlers should be kept away from these areas as best as possible as, even with some visual cues, they’re less likely to pay attention to potential tripping hazards.
Trim those trees
If you have any trees, then you need to make sure that they are well taken care of. If the limbs start to grow too long, they can grow heavy and fall. Similarly, they might snap under the weight of any kids that might be inclined to climb them, so it’s best to work with a local arborist to keep them in good condition. Overgrown trees can also clog up your guttering, which can lead to leaks both outside and inside the home.
Be wary of standing water
You have to pay attention to your garden when it rains. Do you have any places where the water tends to pool and stand? Some poorly-made planters will retain more water than they should, and even the ground might have some standing water. Make sure you invest in proper garden drainage and do what you can to reduce the areas where standing water is allowed to form. It attracts all kinds of bacteria, as well as insects that can lay their eggs there and can later become pests that bother your family. The plethora of health issues it can potentially bring is a very good reason to avoid standing water at all costs.
Take care of your surfaces
One of the benefits of having surfaces like stone, granite, and marble in the garden is that they take a lot less work to maintain that more lawn. However, that doesn’t mean that they are entirely maintenance-free. The organic matter that comes from plants, grass, and pollen and mixes with moisture can begin to form a film on these surfaces that can make them a serious slipping hazard, especially after it rains. As such, services like Epiclean Pressure Cleaning can help you clean these surfaces, offering much better traction again. It’s worth doing this at least once a year to keep walkways safe.
You might not need a lawn at all
If you like the look and feel of a natural lawn and you don’t mind giving it the maintenance that it needs, then you might not need this tip at all. However, if you don’t want to deal with the bugs, the potential for thorny or toxic weeds, or the allergic reactions that they can cause, then you might want to opt for artificial grass courtesy of companies like SYNLawn. It’s definitely a trade-off, so it’s worth considering the pros and cons before making your decision.
Invest in the right fencing
If you don’t have any fencing, then you have no control over who leaves or enters the garden. This is not great for those of you with young kids, first of all, but any family could potentially be in danger if a stray dog can simply wander into the garden. Check out companies like Superior Fence and Rail to ask advice for which kind of fencing might best suit your needs, whether you want security, privacy, or just a basic boundary for the garden.
With the tips above, you can make sure that you’re looking out for all of the family and doing what you can to keep risk out of the garden. Of course, you can’t prevent all accidents, and a few bumps or scrapes along the way are nothing to worry about. The tips above can help you deal with those most potentially serious cases, however.
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