Best garden games for adults..

But oh, those summer nights… You may think you’re too old for garden games, but if you love a board game night, with best friends gathered around a table laden with cheese and wine and good-natured (hopefully) banter when you never get a Linkee right, you should consider building a collection of garden games to extend the fun into the summer months.

Here’s our round up of the most fun garden games for adults

Boules

You may have seen ageing French men playing this on sandy rectangles in French towns and villages, and wondered what the fuss was about, but trust us when we say it’s both addictive and highly competitive – and can easily be played on a lawn. The high end metal ball boules sets cost upwards of £30, but you can find decent sets (certainly for beginners) for under £10. Find one with a sturdy carrying case, such as this one from John Lewis.

Rounders

Remember this? Played at every school in the UK, rounders is something we all know the rules of from a young age. If you need a reminder – it’s simple: the bowler bowls, the hitter hits and then runs to first, second, third base, or gets a full rounder. The team with the most runs after everybody has been in bat, wins. This works best of course if you have a big garden – the neighbours won’t take kindly to broken windows late at night. As an alternative, French cricket – using a tennis racket and tennis ball, follows similar rules to actual cricket, but with less likelihood of injury or broken windows.

Go large: Jenga and Connect 4

Who doesn’t love a game of Connect 4? You will be amazed at how quickly you feel the need to smash the opposition, just make sure you take it easy on the mother-in-law… Garden Jenga is also brilliant fun, but you will need a level, flat surface, so as well as the game itself, you might need to purchase a piece of MDF to set it up on. Amazon has loads of options for both games and a quick search will have you sorted in no time.

Croquet

We can’t talk garden games without mentioning croquet. One of the most classic of English garden games, croquet may look terribly, terribly posh, but it will soon draw out the killer instinct in even the most gentle of souls. It’s quick to learn; you can play in singles (one against one) or doubles (two against two), then you simply set up your hoops and take it in turns to hit your ball. The English Croquet Association (yep, it’s a proper competitive sport) has some easy to follow rules here. There’s just one rule they don’t list – and that is you must have a large jug of Pimms on the go while you play. It’s the law.

Ring toss, or quoits

It may look simple, but… Have you ever tried winning a goldfish (or indeed mobile phone) at a fairground, with the ring toss? Impossible. You can argue they weight the rings all you like, but invest in a game of quoits and you’ll see that skill is key. It’s perhaps more often associated with the cruise liners of old, and the upper middle classes playing quoits on the deck, but as games go, it’s sure to get you hooked. Choose your rope ring, aim it at the pegs, and throw. You score points depending on which peg your hoop lands over. Invest in one with a carrying case, then take it with you to summer events, along with the obligatory bottle of red, of course.

Eddie – Friday 7th July 2023.