Your feel-good garden
Explore the senses and transform your garden into a space that enhances your wellbeing, says Joe Swift. Garden photos by Jason Ingram
Inspired by sensory gardens at Chelsea, Joe Swift reveals tips for stimulating all five senses in your gardening
With wellbeing and mindfulness the current buzzwords, there’s no doubt that gardens and gardening play a key role in nourishing body and soul. I’ve been creating a garden for the spinal unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital; a space for patients and their friends and family to spend quality time. My design looks to stimulate all the senses to some degree. So I was pleased to see at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show a series of five gardens that each took a sense as their theme. Created by leading garden designers, the BBC Radio 2 Feel Good Gardens stole the show for me. Some energised, some intrigued and others soothed – all were totally inspiring. In a garden, senses work in layers rather than hitting you all at once and it’s this that will make for a deeper enjoyment. Follow my tips as I reveal over the coming pages the ideas you can borrow from those Chelsea gardens to harness the power of the five senses in your plot.