Back to Nature With a "Green" Playground

"This is a lot different than playgrounds we have done before. We were really excited to put this together," says Mark Quinn the Superintendent of Horticulture for Monroe County.

Monroe county recently opened up a nature play area in Abraham Lincoln Park on Empire Boulevard in Penfield.

"The playground is constructed of all natural products. They are all fallen trees from our parks.

Large limbs, large trunks pieces of trees that we have found and turned into play apparatus," says Larry Staub. He is the Director of Parks for Monroe County.

Workers were careful to select trees that wouldn't rot quickly, ensuring the playground will be around for years to come. The best part of all of this is none of these trees had to be taken down just for use on this playground. They either fell down in county parks or had to be taken down because of disease or damage.

The project gave county workers an excuse to get creative. Quinn adds, "had a great time building it all different kinds of things to play on backl there had some rally unique pieces of lumber in the park- said hey this would be great for the playground so we started saving things and putting things togehter. There are hollow trees that the kids can climb into."

It's popular with the kids. In part because it's different from most "other" play areas. Staub says, "it does lend itself for a more natural play for the kids. That was the primary goal that we had get them back out into nature and show them you don't need video games and store bought products to have fun."

"When you see the kids coming to the playground, they really gravitate towards that woodland environment. They like the regular playground as well, but more kids are down in that woodland area and that's really kind of neat, doesn't get any greener than that," Quinn says