At this city park it’s orange, blue, and yellow.

Who says grass has to be green? Not park developers for the City of Lakeland, Florida. The city opened Sunflower Preschool Playground in Barnett Family Park featuring multi-colored grass. The orange, blue, and yellow grass not only looks incredible, but also provides a safety-rated surface for children that will last for years.

The revolutionary artificial grass product provides a natural grass texture and appearance, as well as a cushioned safety surface that is ASTM safety rated for fall heights up to 12 feet and ADA accessible.

The park has seen a steady flow of visitors from local areas as well as children being transported from surrounding communities. The playground was designed to provide maximum early childhood developmental play opportunities for children aged three to five, and the texture and color of the playground grass was the perfect fit for the project.

“When we came up with the sunflower garden design for the surface, we thought that a pour-in-place surface was our only option,” said Bill Tinsley, Director of Parks and Recreation.

The City of Lakeland has another park project called Common Ground Park, created to provide play opportunity for all children, including over 17,000 children with physical and cognitive challenges in the Lakeland
community. The award-winning park, which was recognized by the Synthetic Turf Council as a “Field of Dreams” award winner in 2010, features over 25,000 square feet of playground grass.

Sunflower Preschool Playground was built in memory of a little boy named John Kyle Vreeland, Jr., who died in 2008. The boy’s grandmother, Weezie Vreeland, spearheaded the fund raising to build the park.