Features

Enabling Environments: Outdoor resources - Tunnel vision

Plants and play go together naturally thanks to an innovative garden design installed at early years settings. Ruth Thomson takes an inside look.

Children in Southend-on-Sea can now observe the underground life of plants thanks to specially designed planters that formed part of the local borough council's award-winning entry at this year's Hampton Court Flower Show.

The enormous blue cubes have clear Perspex tunnels that children can crawl into to view ordinary vegetables - potatoes, carrots, French beans and beetroot - and the more exotic, such as mooli (a type of radish).

The planters were one of the main features of the Playful Garden, which won a bronze award at the Royal Horticultural Society's show. It was created by the council's parks team with support from playground equipment company Hags Play and the Department for Education.

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