Blake Garden in Kensington may be the best botanic garden in the Bay Area for nature play. A favorite feature for my son is the Create-with-Nature Zone, which is stocked with sticks, rocks, flowers, and other nature items for kids to play and build with. The second best feature here is the bamboo tunnel sculpture. Next, fun at any garden or nature area… running around on the trails! There are rocks to climb, though this is not allowed, so we kept our son low. And, lastly, koi in the reflection pond!
Photos taken April 5th, 2013
Blake Garden, Kensington, California
Interested in seeing what’s blooming in the garden? See these posts…
hike.wander.wonder 
I love this garden! How fun to create that arch-tunnel for exploring and racing through. Well done. Great post. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
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It’s an amazing garden. I wish there were more natural play spaces like this around!
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Love that bamboo tunnel sculpture!
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It’s so fun… kids love it!
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The designers of these venues certainly know how to design for the needs of children, sadly missing in UK.
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There may be “nature artists” in your area who would be interested in creating spaces like this within existing nature areas. The artists who created the play-with-nature zone and the bamboo tunnel probably approached the managers of the garden and asked if they could create these interactive art play spaces.
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It is a good idea.
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What a great place for kids to explore. Sometimes kids are really desperate for something tactile. I remember taking my kids to the zoo when they were small and what the wanted to spend all their time doing was playing with the gravel on the paths.
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Haha! We’ve had a membership to our local zoo (Oakland Zoo) for several years now. Much of the time, my son has been more interested with playing with sticks in the bushes than looking at the animals. 🙂
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