Garden games
are outdoor games played in open spaces like a backyard or garden as opposed to those played in a field such as baseball or soccer. They evolved out of the traditional French and English garden parties, which continue to be outdoor events featuring music, food and convivial atmosphere, with garden games like croquet as part of the entertainment.
Games Needing Equipment
Many traditional garden games such as croquet take certain equipment. Croquet uses balls, mallets, wickets and stakes. For two to six players and often played in teams, the object of croquet is to hit the balls through wickets--metal bent into U-shapes and pushed into the ground--and finally tap the home stake.
Quoits uses pegs which are staked into the ground or attached to a frame, with the pegs worth different points. The quoits themselves are circles of rope. Quoits is similar to horseshoes in that players toss the quoits, trying to throw them over the pegs to gain points. Horseshoes itself is a garden game.
Garden skittles is a lawn bowling game with pins and balls suitable for outdoor play. There are many variations of skittles, which is also called "nine pins." For instance, one version arranges the pins as you'd see them set up in a bowling alley while another arranges them in a square and gives each player three chances to knock them down, earning one point for every toppled pin.
Instead of pins, the game of garden bowls (or boules) uses a single jack, which is a small white ball. Players take turns rolling larger balls at the jack, trying to get their balls to come to rest as close to the jack as possible.
Lawn darts is played with plastic hoops serving as targets. These lay on the ground while players try to throw their darts into the hoops to gain points. The darts are often made of plastic and weighted so the nose dives properly at the ground target.
Some games that we think of as indoor board games have been manufactured for larger-scale, outdoor garden play. Available games include chess, checkers, snakes and ladders, pick-up-sticks and tic-tac-toe. In some of these games, humans can become the pieces.
Games Without Equipment
Not all garden games require equipment. Treasure hunts are always fun, especially if one clue leads to another clue, then another and another until a prize is finally found. Scavenger hunts, too, are suitable garden party games, especially with the inducement of a prize for the winner or team of winners.
"What's Missing?" is a game of memory and observation. A blanket or tray holding a lot of different objects is studied by players. After a set time, they must look away while an object is removed. The first to guess what's missing wins. In a variation, the tray is taken away or the objects covered. The players then try to write down all the objects they can remember until a set time is up. In both versions, for the memorizing part of the game, start with two minutes. For the recall segment in the second version, give everyone three to four minutes.
A garden game that can keep kids occupied is called sardines. A person designated "It" hides while the other players cover their eyes, counting to some number like 50 or 100. The counters go in search of It and when they find her, they join her in hiding. This continues, more and more people being crammed into the hiding space--packed like sardines, you might say--until finally the last person finds the others.
Tags: gain points, garden game, garden games