Curating Play in the Deer Creek Children’s Discovery and Play Area

The Deer Creek Children’s Discovery and Play Area is not your typical playground. You will not find swings, slides or jungle gyms. However, you will be able to explore many opportunities to get creative, connect with plants and explore nature. Here are examples from just three principles observed in curating the Play Area:

Minimal and Intentional Maintenance:

This garden toes the line between natural and curated. Shrubs and trees are pruned to varying degrees to maintain a balance of wild and accessible. 

A trail cut through the Prunus virginiana, or chokecherries, maintains the species' natural habit of spreading through suckers and forming dense thickets, while making it a more suitable area for play. 

Ornamental shrubs planted in this garden regularly have lower limbs and branches pruned out. This practice encourages living screens to create hidden nooks and crannies while still keeping feet visible for supervised play. 

“Play-friendly” Plant Choices:

Plants in this garden are chosen to withstand proximity to play.

Kitchen herbs like Thymus or Oregano often become aggressive spreaders in the garden. However, for this setting, they are a great option. The ability to persist as an attractive and scented groundcover, regardless of the foot traffic, is an asset to the Play Area. Paired with brightly colored sedums, fine textured grasses and pops of flowering perennials, this small garden bed endures high activity while stimulating the senses. 

Evolving Play and “Loose Parts”:

Loose parts encourage creativity and imaginative play. Here, “loose parts” refer to natural materials, that are not part of a living plant. Materials can be moved and manipulated without any specific purpose. Examples of loose parts that you may find are:

• Stumps or tree circles are perfect for sitting or stacking. Whenever a tree needs to be taken down onsite, parts are salvaged and added to the Play Area.
• Small sticks, pinecones and acorn caps for building. While not all these materials occur naturally in the Play Area, they are often scattered in the chokecherry thicket by staff to use as loose parts. 
• Fallen leaves, particularly the waxy leaves of the cottonwoods, Populus sp., are durable and easy to use in natural artwork. Just make sure to enjoy them quickly before they are all cleaned up!
   

None of the natural play elements are fixed. The materials used to build a fairy house one day might be reused in a mural the next. The Play Area is constantly evolving and changing with each new visitor. How will you leave a temporary mark of your own on your next visit?