Child-proofing garden...

[Comacchio]

I've almost finished our garden project (new build, big ole' plot of mud behind house) after nearly 4 years at it. In that time we've had twins - they're now at toddler stage, so I need to come up with a solution to child proof the garden. When we moved in there was an 800mm rise from house to rear fence so I decided to split the garden into 2 levels - which is now what I need to defend against.






I was thinking about some form of retractable wind break style solution that could mount to the fence either side at the grass/decking side of the planters and be drawn across, but haven't seen any cost effective options so far, so thought I'd open it up to the PH masses. Any ideas?

Cheers.

[Comacchio]

mikeiow said:

I may be off-piste here, but I would train them to use the garden as you have it.
Unless there is something super dangerous - do you have a pit with knives in?
Teach them to crawl carefully up and down steps and be there with them anyway.
Maybe I sound wrong, but we wouldn't leave our toddlers on their own in the garden. Sure, they will trip and graze knees, but that is part of learning.

For this summer they just wont be at the trainable stage. The problem I'm trying to solve is to allow 1 parent to be in either upper or lower part of garden with both children at once and not have to constantly run between T1 and T2 diverting them away from the dangerous drop. May be overthinking.

[Comacchio]

sherman said:

Ask your neighbour.
They have a small slide on their top level.

Other option is build a 3-4ft fence along the back of the raised bed and put a gate at the top of the steps with a lock/catch out of small peoples reach.
You can grow some climbers along the fence to soften the look.

Their child is 15 months older so understands the dangers more and has 2 parents to run after at all times. I'm just trying to solve a problem for this summer really - I'm in the office most days and my wife is a teacher so is home alone with the kids most of the summer. 2 toddlers and 1 parent is pretty tough going!