A feast for the senses
WHAT YOU SMELL, TOUCH, TASTE AND HEAR CAN BE JUST AS IMPORTANT AS WHAT YOU SEE IN YOUR GARDEN
MOST people will go all-out to make their garden a delightful sight, but scent, sound, touch and taste are often lucky to get a look-in.
But a scheme that delivers something special to stimulate all five senses boosts the underlying oomph of your garden no end.
And it can make a small space seem larger by adding an extra dimension – turning even the briefest trip outside into an instant open-air aromatherapy and walk-through spa session.
You don’t have to create a whole new garden from scratch – just slot sensory plants and features into your existing layout. But don’t simply scatter them around any old way. Think of the way you arrange harmonising colours and contrasting shapes, sizes and textures so they don’t fight when you’re trying to create a pleasing view. That’s the approach to take with other sensory ingredients.
Plan your scheme so you take a journey round the garden.
Scented plants are some of the easiest to misuse. Where a lot of people go wrong is to collect a great assortment of scented plants, shove the lot in one place and call it a scented garden. But that’s like throwing the contents of your store cupboard into a saucepan and calling it stew. Make each scent stand out by giving it a bit of breathing space. If you have roses in a mixed bed, don’t grow other scented flowers underneath them – use your lavenders to line the path to your next feature and save jasmine to grow over the pergola or gazebo, where you can sit and enjoy undiluted fragrance.
There are two sorts of scents, and you need some of each. Scented flowers are great when in bloom, but for longer-lasting fragrance you need plants with scented leaves. The fragrance only leaks out when the leaves are bruised, so grow them somewhere you’ll brush past the plants.
Pelargonium offers a good spectrum of scents. There are lemon, orange, peppermint and pine varieties as well as various spices. Herbs are great fragrance plants as well as for use in cookery, especially rosemary, lemonscented verbena and mint.
Strategically speaking, the places to concentrate your scents are in containers by your front and back doors, on your patio and in beds underneath the window you open in summer, where you’ll gain the most benefit. Sound hardly figures on most people’s list of must-have garden features. Wind chimes have fallen into the irritating bracket and outdoor stereo systems must count as anti-social – unless you
live miles from the neighbours.
But have you noticed the soothing effects of gently running water? A rippling fountain in a quiet corner with a seat and some scented plants are the ideal ingredients for therapeutic winddown sessions on summer evenings after work.
Most water features operate by recycling a small amount, so you needn’t worry about wastage.
Rustling grasses, such as bamboos and the taller ornamental miscanthus, are one of today’s highly desirable, natural sound effects – and, of course, don’t forget birdsong.
Encourage birds to drop in by feeding them and providing drinking water and baths. As a bonus, their activities are gripping viewing – better than any TV soap.
Touch is probably not something you often do to plants, but next time you are in a nursery or garden centre, take a look around.
There are plants with soft and silky leaves (stachys byzantina), felty foliage (purple sage and some artemisia species) and tough mound-shaped rock plants, such as saxifrages, whipcord hebes and also some sempervivums, which are a joy to pat.