Now Playing…Nature in the City

Heading to the farmers’ market on a summer Saturday morning, I walked through Mears Park in downtown St. Paul. A boulder-studded stream cuts diagonally through the park, shaded by birch trees and punctuated with small wildflower gardens planted and tended by neighbors. This is where families gather and children play.

Created with traditional nature play elements like rocks, trees, and water, this playscape suggests a woodland. Stretching across a full city block, the landscape’s scale is generous. Paths weave around and through clumps of trees, opening up to create leafy habitats for play. 

A city park with the feel of the backyard, woods, trails, and streams where I loved playing as a child, it invites a similar range of nature play. 

On this splendid Saturday, children, from toddlers to ten-year olds were:

• Balancing on rocks

• Boulder hopping

• Crossing bridges

• Racing sticks from one pool to another

• Dangling feet in the water

• Splashing

• Jumping from side-to-side of the stream

• Following the leader

• Collaging with leaves
• Sitting with others, talking, watching