Incorporating the Four Elements into Your Garden

Nature has provided four important elements for our survival: earth, fire, water and wind. Artistic gardeners subtly incorporate these elements into their gardens and balance their effects.

 

Incorporating the four elements does not require a major overhaul of your garden. You don't have to tear out all the vegetation and start anew, planting exotic flowers, digging ponds, constructing waterfalls and installing an earthen fire pit.

 

You can easily incorporate each of the elements with a few inexpensive and subtle changes. Is your garden a bit lacking in the earth element? Why not place a few choice rocks or stones to give your garden added personality? Not enough fire element? Why not incorporate some plants with fiery red flowers? Need a bit of wind? How about a wind chime? It's not difficult nor is it expensive.

The earth element includes the rocks, the soil and anything else made from the earth itself.

The fire element includes fire pits and candles, but live fires do not have to be included in your garden if you're worried about safety. You can use brightly colored plants or plants shaped like fire to incorporate the fire element.

Water is fluid, and can be reflected in the plants, or explicitly included in the garden with a pond or waterfall.

The wind element is probably the most difficult to imagine. Think of the sounds you hear in the garden, the feel of the breeze as it blows by you; then think of how you can incorporate that into your garden.