Swinging is an occupation that is as old and simple as it is wonderfully pure and pleasurable and should not be missing in any childhood. A swing should therefore not be missing in the family garden either. The options for attaching them are manageable - from simple to risk-free. We introduce them to you.

 

Ways to attach a swing

How you can attach a swing for your children (and admit it: for yourself too!) depends primarily on two factors:

• expected user base
• individual garden style

Depending on whether only a delicately built only child wants to swing through the air from time to time, whether a wild crowd of children from the family and neighbors should be able to storm the swing, or whether heavy adults also want to have fun on it, the device has to withstand more or less.
Which type of swing and attachment method you choose is also a question of style.

The following three methods are common/possible for attaching the swing:

• easy tying to the tree
• Concrete in the swing frame
• Fasten the swing frame with ground anchors

Tie to the tree

The simplest and also most romantic variant of the swing attachment is simply tying it to a tree. However, one or the other must be taken into account.

On the one hand, the tree must be sufficiently large and strong, i.e. as fully grown as possible, but not too old (and therefore possibly at risk of falling). Also look for a suitable branch of solid thickness and choose the tying position as close to the trunk as possible. In this way you reduce a possible permanent risk of breakage and branch vibrations transmitted to the swing.

Furthermore, unless you buy a ready-made tree swing, you should use strong and weather-resistant ropes. You can purchase materials with exact load capacity specifications from rope shops.

In order to protect the tree branch from chafing, you should not tie the ropes directly to it, but use synthetic suspension straps with snap hooks. You can also line these with underlay fleece.

Concrete in the swing frame

If you don't have a suitable tree in the garden, a swing frame is the alternative. The safest way to secure one of these is with concrete foundations. The disadvantage of this is that this solution is more complex - both when setting up and when removing it later.

Concreting in metal rocking frames can usually be carried out without any problems. A wooden swing frame is more problematic because of its sensitivity to moisture. Here the beam material must be treated solidly with wood preservative glaze.

To make it easier to remove swing frames that have been concreted in, we recommend the bucket method: instead of concrete the scaffolding feet directly into the hole in the ground, place the concrete foundation in a sunken bucket. This makes it easier to get it out again in one go when the time comes.

Fasten with ground anchors

A somewhat less complicated method of anchoring swing frames to the ground is the ground anchor method. There are ground anchors for hammering or screwing into the ground. Basically, no concreting is necessary, although some concrete the anchors for additional security. This is particularly useful if the soil is too loose and sandy.

The anchors offer a little less stability compared to solid concrete foundations, but they are a good solution if the swing load is not too intensive. Another advantage is that they can be easily aligned to mount the frame bases and are easy to remove again.