- Sight – ‘Seeing your garden’
Add contrasting elements to add to your sensory experience. Colour, visual texture, form, movement, light and shadow stimulate the sense of sight.
Colour
Colour provides a visual stimulus while adding order and balance, unity, rhythm, focal points, accents, and definition to a garden.
Warm colours – Enliven the emotions and promote activity.
e.g. Red, orange, and yellow.
Cool colours – Tend to be soothing, and promote tranquillity.
e.g. Blue, purple and white.
Flowers: A traditional, effective way to add colour.
e.g. Colourful fruits, foliage, and bark also can significantly enhance a garden’s visual appeal.
For the visually impaired:
– The visual elements of the garden ordinarily would not be designed with the visually-impaired in mind.
– Partially sighted persons, however, may be able to perceive large blocks of riotous colour. This factor may be considered in the design of some hardscape components and planting beds.
Visual Texture
Plants come in many forms, including upright, open, weeping, cascading, or columnar.
Individual parts of plants, such as leaves or fruit, have their own forms, such as round, toothed, and spherical.
– Include plants with interesting visual texture to add to the sensory garden experience.
– Include smooth, rough, ruffled, fuzzy, or lacey-textured plants.
– Consider the overall texture of a plant.
e.g. A fine-textured plant has small leaves and a somewhat sparse appearance.
A coarse-textured plant has large leaves and a fuller appearance.
Movement
– Include plants that sway in the wind, moving water features, pools with floating leaves or flowers, fish in ponds, butterflies and birds.
– Design planting beds so that the eye is drawn through a sequence of focal points and vistas.
Light and shadow
A visually important element often overlooked in a sensory garden is light and shadow.
Possibilities for contrast:
Subtle – such as dappled sunlight through a shade tree.
Dramatic – such as a dark tunnel of willow or vines that leads to an area of full sun.
Accessories for enhancing visual pleasure:
– Colour flood lights, torches, mirrors, gazing globes.
– Mobiles and sculpture.
- Sound – ‘Listen to your garden’
Opening the ears in a garden expands the senses and broadens the garden encounter.
Opportunities can be provided in a sensory garden for sitting under a tree to hear the sound of wind rushing through the leaves.
Plants that offer sound
Many plants provide sounds with a small amount of wind or jostling.
e.g. Bamboo stems knock together, grasses rustle, palm fronds sway.
Seed pods of some plants make natural maracas, or sound shakers.
Leaves can be left on the ground to crunch underfoot.
Sounds of animals
Animals can enliven the senses through sound.
– Oak trees can host squirrels that chatter and scramble.
– Encourage birdsongs and provide bird baths, bird-attracting plants, bird feeders and bird houses.
Accessorise with audio
– Bring sounds to the garden and use waterfalls, fountains, water harps, windchimes and music piped in through outdoor speakers.
- Smell – ‘The scent of your garden’
The sense of smell is deeply emotional and associative.
Scent in the garden can create a lasting sensory experience. This can be especially meaningful for the visually impaired. A fragrance can evoke long-buried memories. Crushing and smelling a plant part is also a classic method of plant recognition and identification.
Choose fragrant plants
– Incorporate fragrances of delicate nasturtium blossoms, the heady perfume of gardenia, or the resinous scent of pine needles.
– Include edible species that have strong fragrances.
e.g. Tomatoes, citrus and herbs and spices.
Where to place plants
Relaxing with a variety of scented plants at hand to enjoy is a simple pleasure.
– Put plants in large pots along the garden paths so they can be brushed and touched without stooping.
– Plant fragrant creeping herbs i.e. thyme among pathways as walking or wheeling on them will release their aroma.
– Use fragrant plants alongside garden seating for a natural combination.
Timing is key
The timing of garden maintenance activities should be considered for their effect on scents in the air.
Some plants release their fragrance into the air with the heat of the sun, while others release their scent only when crushed.
– If the garden will be used in the evening, include plants that release their fragrance at night, such as confederate jasmine.
– Mow turf areas shortly before garden users arrive to avoid the smell of lawn mower exhaust and encourage the smell of freshly cut grass.
– Use accessories like incense and scented oils in garden torches that contribute scent to the sensory garden..
- Touch – ‘Feel your garden’
In a sensory garden, people should be encouraged to touch plants.
Choose plants that are durable enough to withstand frequent brushing or handling.
Tactile delights
– Soft flowers, fuzzy leaves, springy moss, rough bark, succulent leaves, and prickly seed pods.
– Sticky fruit and gooey plant saps can also stimulate the sense of touch and give children an educational thrill.
Textured plants
Some species offer a variety of textures within a single plant.
e.g. The rose – delicate petals and thorny stems.
Silver buttonwood – rough bark and soft grey leaves.
Southern magnolia – leaves slick, shiny, and dark green above, and soft, felted brown beneath.
Be mindful of your audience
Plants that may be dangerous to the visually impaired, such as spiny agaves or roses, need not be excluded from the sensory garden.
– Using design, place these plants out of accidental reach, toward the back of planting beds.
An excellent addition to a touch garden is a lawn where people can lie down.
– Water features within reach, with water lilies and other aquatic plants to touch, also provide tactile experiences.
Garden accessories that stimulate the sense of touch include outdoor misting machines and sculpture.
- Taste – ‘Consume your garden’
In a sensory garden, the tastebuds can tingle from edible fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices.
Benefits of taste
– Provides teaching opportunities in edible landscaping, agriculture, and nutrition.
– Evokes reminiscences and cultural exchange over food plants.
Ensure everyone gets a taste
– Include plants that can produce a large number of edible parts over time.
e.g. Mint leaves, strawberries, or edible flowers
– Avoid species with more limited production.
e.g. Cantaloupe
Provide space
– Make room for food preparation, cooking, and eating.
– Use an outdoor barbeque grill and a picnic table in the shade.
– A small pavillion for preparing herbal tea from the garden is a wonderful addition that adds an Eastern cultural element.
(Serves 1)
The Bright Side 