Here is a good site that recommends safe amounts of surfacing materials. It seems as if sand, pea gravel, and bark mulch or wood chips is about all that's out there. I did some research on this a while back for my church. At that time I thought the shredded rubber mulch looked pretty good as a new product. But now I have read that it smells unpleasantly like hot rubber tires in the sun, sticks to kids and their shoes, etc.

http://www.kidsource.com/CPSC/playground_surface.html

Pea gravel is a real pain. It rolls under the kids shoes, they fall. It get stuck in shoe treads and pants cuffs. When the school had it, I was alwasy picking pea gravel out of the washer. I would go with a thick layer of wood mulch.

Here's an 'off the wall" idea which might work. Construct a frame of treated wood sized to fit the worn area. Secure a piece of remanent indoor-outdoor carpeting around the frame and tacked to the inside of the frame. Now, excavate the worn spot and set the frame just below ground level working sand underneath it for drainage. Tamp all down so everything is at ground level and safe for little ones. This should last for a few years until the they become intent on hitting baseballs through the neighbor's windows.

Nandina, that's so crazy it just might work!

melanie

Cedar chips, playground grade- available at professional quality landscape supply stores. - install at a thickness of 6 to 8 inches deep. - Recc. by in the know homeowners, landscape architects and goverment agencies .

Directly under the swing place a precast 2x2 concrete paver.
Go to Home Cheapo - Purchase a set of their interlocking 2x2 ( actual dims are 2'- 4" squared ) and glue with epoxy two or three layers of the dense colored foam ontop of the precast 2x2's.

Done.

We have a rubber material that we use in our park system that works GREAT under playgrounds ... it is installed with cement trowel type tools and then sets firm . The surface can be colored ... it's bouncey and safe if the kids fall on it ....

Let me know I'll check the name if you are interested.

Good Day ...

We had a Rainbow play system installed a couple of years ago and used rubber mulch (shreaded tire rubber).
In contradiction to a previous post, I believe it to be the best covering for such a play area. Falling on it is like a fall on a gym mat, water drains through nicely, bugs seem to dislike it and since it was placed over landscape fabric (and uses a rubber landscape timber around the perimeter) nothings ever come up through it.
About the only bad thing I might say is that it does get hot in direct sun...and yes, if you stick your face in it when hot, is does smell like tire rubber... well, that is what it is.
I'll confess that using rubber mulch is a bit upsetting to my "organic sensibilities", but now believe that it is far safer than any other covering...Abbey's taken a few bad spills out there and has bounced back up pretty well.

Thank you for all the great ideas, however, the biggest problem is that I have two little boys that love to dig!! I bought a small toys r us sand box But it just didn't do the trick.
I think pea gravel is really my only choice.......hope cats won't like it......does anyone know for sure???

I vote against the pea gravel and for wood mulch.

Mulch is softer than gravel, but the real advantage comes in the future. Eventually your kids will grow up and stop using the swingset. When that day comes would you prefer to pack up and truck away a bunch of rubber / gravel or would you prefer to start gardening right away in a wonderful bed where organic material has been breaking down for the past decade?

I have wood mulch under my kids swingset (with no weed mat and I have no weed problem) and the soil there is the best I've ever seen.

You can always go down to the Agway and buy a couple bales of horse shavings, they are clean and smell nice.
As for keeping cats out of sand and the like try to find some oil of lemongrass it is a natural repellant, cats dislike anything smelling of citrus.

What's there now? Just dirt? Grass?

My kids don't like to wear sandals to the adventure playgroud here because they get the pea gravel caught in their shoes, and it's too slippery for my toddler as well. If your kids like to dig you could leave the whole area bare with a box of digging tools nearby--tonka toys etc,... swings get tied up and you have a nice play ground. Swings come down and away they go! I like the elongated goudge that runs under each swing from plain dirt. It looks nice at a distance. Landing from on high would be safer with a straight surface. No slivers, easy to rake clean and an additional digging factor. But the best part is that your kids are going to be swinging whichever you decide! Great!

We have a new playground and are also debating what to place beneath it. We bought about 8 bags of mulch at The Home Depot and realized once we started to install it that the girls could no longer play barefoot in the area. Hundreds of splinters (well not quite than many) were all over our feet. OUCH! We have a large lawn area and want the kids to be able to run barefoot which they love to do. We are considering rubber mulch or small round pea gravel.

do I install the swing set first then place mulch around it, or install mulch and put the swing set on top of it?

I'm sure you have already done so, but you will want to install your swing set prior to placing your surfacing around your play area. This is because mulch, sand and pea rock will move and\or deteriorate causing anything on top of it to shift over time. You will however want to place a weed barrier down before you install your play set.

I like playground sand it feel soft on your feet like the beach sand unless there's a ton of stray cats around then u probably shouldn't I guess but we have been using it for 3 years with out any trouble I just have to add too it every spring but there are no stones or would chips to get caught in the mower and shot accross the yard at one of the kids either! Bonus! :)

My vote is used scrap carpeting upside down. I wouldnt go to all the trouble as framing it, but it would be nicer if you wanted to do that. Then wood mulch over the top if you wanted. Pea gravel will end up in your house and all over your lawn and other places you dont want it. Cement pavers will cause skinned knees. Rubber mulch would be a pain to get rid of later on. Nice toddler's pool with sand for digging.

i have a similar concern as ashley above. I am sure to build the playset, then fill the area with mulch. My concern is that burying the posts of the swingset in the recommended 9" of mulch will throw off the installation of slide and wall climb, which touch the ground. To be more clear, the bottom of the slide touches the ground when installed on a flat surface, but when installed 9" deep in mulch, the bottom of the slide is no longer touching the ground, its buried 9" deep in mulch!

We just brought our kids swingset over to our new home and had no choice but to set it up on a gravel driveway in our backyard. I'd prefer to have it over pea stone. Do you think I can put the pea stone right on top of the gravel and the gravel will stay at the bottom?Or do you think the gravel will settle up through the pea stone?

The smallest stuff will go to the bottom. The pea gravel will drift down through the gravel, through the little gaps between stones, until it all disappears. Like sand would, only not quite as fast.

If you are on a budget, wood chips or mulch is the cheapest choice to put under your swing set. It is a natural product, and you can find it anywhere.

Or you can follow this article: http://sumogardener.com/what-to-put-under-swing-set/

For goodness sake, don't BUY wood chips. Tree companies are happy to deliver them for free. I'd get them in the winter without leaves, which can heat up the chips as they compost.

Sand, mulch or bark.

Only problem with wood chips, we're in Florida so kids go barefoot, and we've had several "stabbings by wood chips to the feet. I know, they should wear shoes to go out and play - simple solution, but tell them that. Five year old says his feet get 'too hot". We've opted for sandbox sand now under ours (although it does eventually get dirty), but the boy enjoys playing with his dump trucks and tractors under there better than swinging. Under monkey bars, we put the interlocking mats.

I have a daycare and I put horse trailer Mats under our swing set no mess hoses off great just secured them with the plastic landscape pegs

Sand box is the easiest thing we did. The bigger issue was on TOP of the playset. We got our playset from our neighbor but had to replace our tarp as the original was shredded. Tarp options are very limited until we found this place on Etsy. We bought direct at monkeybartarps.com. They do crazy large custom graphic printing on marine grade vinyl. Very durable and totally unique. They can even print a day care logo on it! Here is our finished set.