Landscaping Around Your Cubby House

A cubby house standing alone in a bare backyard is perfectly functional, but a cubby integrated into thoughtful landscaping becomes part of a magical play world. The right plants, pathways, and features transform the area around your cubby into an enchanting environment that enhances play value while maintaining safety. Here's how to create landscaping that children will love and parents will appreciate.

Safety First: Landscaping Principles

Before thinking about aesthetics, ensure your landscaping choices don't compromise safety. Several key principles should guide your planning.

Maintain Clear Fall Zones

The fall zone around your cubby must remain clear of any hard objects or trip hazards. This includes garden edging, large rocks, pots, and hard-stemmed plants. Soft plantings like groundcovers at the edges are fine, but the immediate fall zone should contain only approved impact-absorbing surfaces.

Choose Non-Toxic Plants

Children explore with all their senses, including taste. Avoid plants that are poisonous if ingested, have thorns or spines at child height, produce berries that could be mistaken for food, or cause skin irritation on contact.

Consider Allergies

Be mindful of high-pollen plants if family members or frequent visitors have allergies. Heavily scented plants might also trigger sensitivities. Native Australian plants often produce less allergenic pollen than exotic flowering species.

Creating Zones and Pathways

Define the Play Space

Low borders help define the cubby area as a distinct zone within your garden. Options that work well include low hedges of soft, child-safe plants, simple timber or recycled plastic edging, rounded river stones (outside the fall zone), and ornamental grasses that create gentle boundaries.

Defined borders help children understand play boundaries and can protect garden beds from ball games and running feet.

Pathways to the Cubby

A dedicated path to the cubby reinforces its status as a special destination and keeps traffic off lawn areas. Path options include stepping stones (space them for child-sized steps), compacted gravel or crusher dust, timber rounds set into the ground, and bark mulch paths defined by edging.

Curved paths are more interesting than straight ones and can create a sense of adventure in the journey to the cubby. Consider what story the path might tell—is it a path through a forest, stepping stones across a river, or a road to a secret hideaway?

Planting for Imagination

The right plants transform a backyard into a world of possibilities. Think about what atmospheres and play scenarios you might encourage.

Creating Secret Garden Spaces

Children love hidden spaces. Use taller plants to create screening that makes the cubby feel more secluded without blocking adult sightlines entirely. Ornamental grasses that sway in the breeze, bamboo in contained planters to prevent spreading, tall native grasses like Poa or Lomandra, and screening plants with soft foliage all work well.

Position screening to create the sensation of discovering the cubby as you approach, while ensuring you can still supervise from key vantage points.

Sensory Plants

Engage children's senses with plants that offer interesting textures, scents, sounds, and colours. Consider lamb's ears with soft, touchable leaves, lavender and herbs for scent, grasses that rustle in wind for sound, and native flowering plants that attract butterflies and birds.

Edible Gardens

A small veggie patch or fruit plants near the cubby connects play with food growing and healthy eating. Cherry tomatoes, strawberries, and herbs are particularly child-friendly—they're interesting to pick and safe to eat straight from the garden. Consider a small raised bed that children can tend as part of their cubby activities.

Ground Covers and Soft Surfaces

Within the Fall Zone

The immediate fall zone should contain appropriate impact-absorbing material. Popular options include rubber mulch, which is long-lasting and effective, plus available in natural colours, bark or wood chips that are natural-looking and affordable but need regular topping up, play sand that provides good cushioning but can attract animals, and synthetic turf with underlay that is low maintenance with consistent protection.

Beyond the Fall Zone

Surrounding areas can be lawn, garden beds, or additional play surfaces. For lawns that will see heavy use, choose tough varieties like couch, kikuyu, or buffalo that can handle foot traffic. Accept that the area immediately around the cubby will likely see more wear.

Alternatively, extend soft-fall surfacing beyond the fall zone to create a larger defined play area. This reduces maintenance and provides consistent safe surfacing for broader active play.

Shade and Shelter

Strategic Tree Planting

Trees provide natural shade, but require careful positioning. Plant far enough away that the mature tree won't overhang the cubby directly, as falling branches are a hazard, and dropping leaves create mess and moisture problems. A tree positioned to cast afternoon shade across the play area is ideal.

Deciduous trees offer summer shade but allow winter sun through. Good Australian options include crepe myrtle, ornamental pears, and liquidambar. For faster results, consider shade sails as an interim measure while trees mature.

Built Shade Structures

Shade sails positioned above or near the cubby provide reliable sun protection. Position carefully to avoid obstructing play or creating collision hazards. Pergolas or shade structures can be designed to complement the cubby aesthetically while providing practical protection.

Adding Play Value

Landscaping can incorporate features that extend play beyond the cubby itself.

Natural Play Elements

Large logs for climbing and balancing, boulder groupings for clambering, tree stumps at varying heights, and sand play areas with digging opportunities all add play value. These natural elements blend seamlessly with garden settings while providing open-ended play opportunities.

Wildlife Attractions

Bring nature to the play area with bird-attracting native plants, a shallow bird bath (not a drowning hazard), flowering plants that attract butterflies, and habitat features like small log piles for lizards.

Children delight in observing wildlife, and a cubby becomes a perfect "hide" for nature watching.

Small World Play

Create miniature landscapes for imaginative small-world play. A fairy garden near the cubby, miniature garden features, small dinosaur or farm animal play areas, and water-wise rock gardens with small succulents (non-spiny varieties) all complement cubby play wonderfully.

Low-Maintenance Considerations

A beautifully landscaped play area that requires constant upkeep quickly becomes a burden. Design for practical maintenance.

Choose Hardy Plants

Select plants suited to your climate that don't require constant watering, pruning, or pest management. Australian natives are often the best choice—they're adapted to local conditions and typically low-maintenance once established.

Minimise High-Maintenance Features

Beautiful as they are, features like formal hedges requiring regular trimming, high-maintenance lawns needing constant care, and delicate plants easily damaged by ball games create ongoing work. Balance aesthetic desires with practical reality.

Design for Access

Ensure you can easily access all areas for maintenance—mowing, weeding, and general upkeep. Avoid creating spaces that are difficult to reach or that require moving play equipment to maintain.

Bringing It All Together

The best cubby house landscaping feels natural and integrated rather than designed. Work with your existing garden style, climate, and maintenance capacity. Start with safety essentials, then layer in elements that enhance play and visual appeal.

Remember that gardens grow and change. You don't need to create the finished product immediately. Start with key structural elements and add plants over time. As your children grow, their play needs will change, and the garden can evolve with them.

Most importantly, involve your children in the process. Let them help choose plants, dig holes, and water new additions. A garden they've helped create becomes part of their play world in a deeply personal way.