A THREE year-old girl with life-threatening disabilities can now play safely in her garden for the first time after her mum won a makeover competition to redesign her back yard.

Baby Ariella was born with two rare conditions, Nager Syndrome and Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, giving her only a 10 per cent chance of survival.

She was born at 31 weeks, weighing only 2lb 2oz, and had an emergency tracheostomy at two hours old – a procedure the hospital had never done with a baby that young nor small. It saved her life.

After spending 10 months in hospital, her mother Megann Rees, who is 23 and from Headington, Oxford, finally got to take her baby home.

Three years later, Ariella now loves the outdoors but she could not play anywhere safe, given her condition and the round-the-clock care she needs.

Ms Rees entered MyBuilder's 'win a grand for your garden' competition hoping to change the life of her daughter.

After receiving thousands of votes for the contest she was ultimately selected as the winner for the makeover to create a safe place for Ariella to play for the first time.

She said: "I never win anything normally, but I thought ‘I am going to try my luck’.

"I shared it on Facebook and saw the positivity that we were getting from it.

"It was was quite incredible to know that we had that kind of support around us. MyBuilder has given us our wish.”

The competition was launched by the online marketplace, which helps homeowners to find tradesmen, in March this year.

Almost 500 homeowners from across the country entered and more than 30,000 members of the public voted for their favourite entry with Ms Rees gaining almost 5,000 votes and topping the public vote.

The garden was a hazardous terrain of mounds of mud, wood chips, broken paving slabs, bricks and pipes.

Yet Ariella's vulnerability to infection from other children means that visits to the park are fraught with risk.

Local landscape gardener Julie Arthur from Home and Garden Makeovers took to work on designing a colourful and safe sensory garden.

Ms Rees said: “This is going to make such a dramatic difference to Ariella's life.

"It’s been heartbreaking as a parent to not be able to give her what she needs, because we both had to give up work.

"She has been very isolated in the house. Now she can go outside, run around, feel everything, enjoy the bright colours and just go a bit crazy like most three year-olds. She has fought so hard, she really deserves this.”