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Creating a Garden for All Senses

A truly peaceful garden incorporates elements for each of our senses: seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting and feeling. A garden for all senses is stimulating, yet peaceful. It excites our senses, yet invites us to be still and enjoy.

Gardening for the Eyes

"My first planting of tulips was a straight line on a bare hill by the house. When they bloomed there was a colorful separation between my yard and my neighbors. However, if I cut one flower, the line was interrupted by an awkward space. And when the tulips died, a barricade of dead foliage was all that remained.

"'Plant in threes,' someone told me, 'And plant something with them.' The following year, the tulips were planted in threes and staggered. They hugged plants like heather and pansies, and others that would gracefully hide them in their weakest moments."

Planting groups of flowers together holds two purposes. The fellowship allows one type of flower to show its greatness if other flowers are beginning to die. It also gives the gardener the opportunity to cut those flowers and bring them inside the house to enjoy without destroying the garden's beauty.

Grouping plants and flowers adds texture to the garden. The blending of flowers of different heights and colors offers a new twist to a blank canvas. When planting tall plants against a fence, try alternating the tallest flowers with the shortest. This will create a depth to the flower garden, and give it strong visual appeal.

In a five senses garden, you can experiment with colors. Try similar hues like reds, pinks and magentas. Or for a greater splash of color find many different colors and group them together.

Smells in the Garden

Smells in the garden need not be limited to flowers. Any gardener knows the appealing smell of rain-wet earth. Conifers and shrubs can also have a heady, aromatic quality, as can a carefully chosen selection of herbs.

While most people don't spend much time thinking about the fragrance of a garden at night, night bloomers such as angel's trumpet, evening primrose and moonflowers add an exotic quality to the nighttime garden, especially when highlighted by careful lighting.

Plant a Nighttime Blooming Garden
Partly because they bloom at night, nighttime blooming flowers often have heady, exotic scents to them. Here are some suggestions to create an olfactory delight for your nighttime garden strolls

datura: This plant, also known as the thorn apple, has enormous white, trumpet shaped, fragrant flowers. It is not recommended if you have children or pets, as this plant is poisonous.
evening primrose: Although this plant looks weedy during the day, in a nighttime garden it explodes with fragrance as its large yellow flowers give off a sweet scent.
evening-scented stock: This is a small nighttime garden plant that opens after sunset to unravel a wonderful spicy aroma and rich purple flowers. This plant blooms throughout most of the summer.
four o'clock: As this plant's name indicates, its flowers open in the warm afternoons of late summer.
moonflower: This nighttime garden plant is a relative of the morning glory. Climbing moonflower plants produce fragrant, white, four to six-inch flowers that open after dark.
nicotiana:This plant is a fragrant annual whose aroma is more intense at night. This nighttime garden plant can unfurl pink, red or white flowers.

Water, too, can appeal to the nose. It may not have a specific aroma, but a fountain can clean the air and provide a freshness that the nose can detect.

Sounds in the Garden

People tend to think of gardens as peaceful, quiet spots, so it's understandable that sound is sometimes neglected in home gardening. But a well-designed five senses garden creates its own sounds.

Any healthy garden will have the buzz of bees and other pollinators, and the chirp of grasshoppers. Birds are attracted to berry bushes, make their homes in birdhouses and find shelter in the trees. A small pond might even attract frogs.

Of course, those confined to apartment balconies and other small spaces may have to be creative about sound since they're not going to attract frogs to the fifth floor.

You might consider a few pieces of sound-producing garden art. Wind chimes are a possible solution. While a set of two-foot long Winchester chimes might be inappropriate for a balcony, smaller models work just fine. If you don't like the metal chimes, try some oriental bamboo chimes that produce a gentle clicking sound.

The sound of water also works beautifully in a garden—the rhythmic swish of a sprinkler on a hot summer's day has a relaxing, soporific effect. For small spaces, select a fountain that bubbles and gurgles rather than shooting up energetically. Thanks to the rise of the compact garden, many manufacturers produce fountains that fit nicely in the corner of a porch or balcony or on a tabletop. Oriental-style fountains, in particular, produce calming, gentle sounds.

The Touch and Taste of a Garden

Some of the ways in which a garden appeals to the senses are immediately apparent: the smell of flowers, the sounds of a bird chirping and the sight of a rose in bloom, but there are several, more hidden ways in which gardens appeal to the senses.

Have you ever bitten into a tomato, fresh off of the vine? Or added homegrown basil to a time-honored family recipe? Consider small cherry tomato plants for your balcony planter or a window box with sections for parsley, basil and chives. And don't forget edible flowers—nasturtium petals, for example, are hot and peppery. They aren't for everyone, but they do provide a startling and creative addition in a salad.

A garden is full of tactile stimulation. After all, gardening is an intensely tactile activity. Close your eyes and feel the moist earth, or the varying textures of the plants themselves.

Some passive aspects of your garden appeal to the sense of touch. There's the feeling of the breeze on your skin or the warmth of the sun—in general, the feeling of being out in nature.

Try to incorporate shade and sunlight, even in a small space. Moving out of the hot sun into dappled shade can be a simple pleasure. Take the time to note how the sun changes your gardening area over the course of the day, and also as the seasons change. Plan around these changes in light and heat.

Because five senses gardening can't be rushed, it allows us to step back and truly experience all our senses. Stopping and smelling the roses may be a cliché, but actually stepping out of a hectic routine and pausing to smell a real rose is a wonderful, calming experience.

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