According to the BBC 300,000 people attended Accident and Emergency departments in the UK due to accidents in the garden. The lawnmower was the top culprit with 6,500 related incidents followed surprisingly by the flowerpot with 5,300 related incidents. Here are my top three tips to protect you and your children from the garden:

• Trips and falls are the main root cause for accidents so make sure that your slabs are not loose and that you remember to pack away your tools properly. It is surprising what we gardeners put up with … loose walkways, tangled water hoses, unlevelled shelves etc. We care about our plants and lawns, but when it is a little more work required in securing the slabs to the floor we tend to leave it to another day. Look around your garden now and list the entire little tasks you need to do to make it trip hazard free. Then simply choose a day when you are going to work on safety rather than say …. pruning;
• Children don’t care about trip hazards, poisonous plants or water filled ponds. We all know that children will visit our garden sooner or later and so now is the time to double check that the garden is child friendly. Walk around the main areas where the children will run and try to imagine what hazards are lurking around. Put a little action plan together to secure the wire mesh around the pond, get all the sharp tools out of site, place chemicals such as weed killer out of reach and make sure that the kids no which areas they can play in and which are out of bounds;
• Wear protective clothing when you are operating machinery such as lawn mowers, chainsaws and hedge trimmers. Also don’t forget your steel rowed boots, goggles, ear defenders and gloves. Don’t stretch too much on your ladders to prune that bit of growth that you know is just out of your reach.

If your garden is getting too much for you or you just need a hand at a very competitive price. Contact our landscaping experts on 0800 028 4164.