Gardening Is Good For You - August

The sensory experience!

Immerse yourself in a sensory experience by filling your garden with plants that excite the senses. Whether it’s their exciting colours, evocative scents, delicious flavours, tactile appeal or just their calming rustling and movement, we benefit in many ways from having plants in our lives.

Plants can create vibrant and stimulating gardens for families to play out and entertain, using bold shapes and bright colours that stimulate the senses. Children can be encouraged outside to explore, interacting with sensory plants and the natural world around them.

In complete contrast plants can be used to make calming, private and secluded spaces. A tranquil garden that calms the senses is the perfect place to sit and relax, or just meditate and practice mindfulness … relieving stress and improving mental health and wellbeing.

Colour plays a big part in garden design (see the April promotion). Bold and bright colours like yellow, orange and red are vibrant and uplifting, perfect for family gardens designed for play and entertaining. In contrast, cool colours like blue, mauve, violet and green are more calming, and good to use around areas designed for rest and relaxation.

Tall and dense boundary hedges and planting can reduce annoying man-made noise from roads and neighbours, creating a feeling of shelter and protection, but don’t ignore the importance of sound in a sensory garden either. Perhaps it’s wind gently rocking and rustling the branches of trees, a robin perched high-up entertaining us with its song, bees busily harvesting pollen and nectar from beautiful blooms, or the calming sound of trickling water.

Whether you’re creating a stimulating garden or relaxing sensory environment, all gardens have the power to heal and contribute to a healthier and happier life. And getting outside gardening provides exercise as well as a sense of achievement.

Research has highlighted how valuable contact with plants is to our health, whether through the beauty and colour we can see or non-visual stimulation by touching, tasting, smelling or hearing the natural sounds around us. A multi-sensory garden evokes a direct physiological response, both consciously and unconsciously, affecting our mood, relieving stress, evoking memories, relieving boredom, stimulating conversation, and tapping in to the healing power of nature.

DID YOU KNOW?

Do you fancy some quiet ‘me time’? Silent Space is a project promoting peaceful time in green and tranquil spaces – somewhere to switch off your phone, escape and the hustle and bustle of everyday life, stop talking, avoid social media, and let your body and mind wander.

Several gardens are supporting Silent Space including Waterperry Gardens and Greys Court in Oxfordshire, and the Island Pavilion at Croome in Worcestershire, with others are invited to join them.

Whether you want to walk in silence or just sit and contemplate the beautiful garden around you, in just a few minutes you’ll be reaping the restorative benefits of being in a peaceful green space. For more information visit www.silentspace.org.uk.

The Quiet Garden Movement also creates opportunities to experience silence, restfulness and contemplative practices for rest, reflection and prayer. See http://quietgarden.org.

PLANTS OF THE MOMENT: PLANTS TO EXCITE THE SENSES

Virtually every plant will stimulate one sense or another, so this month we’re celebrating plants for all their diverse sensory appeal. Whether you’re looking for something colourful, tactile, fragrant or flavoursome there are plants available to enjoy all-year-round.

Be creative by developing displays along paths and around areas you sit outside, so you can get up close and personal with the plants you choose.

Sensory plants could include:

Colourful Plants:

Highlight plants for both seasonal colour impact and year-round value. Consider colour theming plant displays, and recommending planting partners.

Tactile Plants:

Plants with soft, hairy or textured leaves, stems or bark such as Oranemtal grasses, Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’, Santolina (Cotton Lavender*), Phlomis fruticosa (Jerusalem Sage), Stachys byzantina (Lamb’s Ear), Itea illicifolia.

Scented Plants:

Plants with fragrant flowers and foliage like Lavender*, scented leaf Pelargoniums, Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ (Catnip), Artemisa ‘Powis Castle’ (Wormwood)

Swaying and Rustling Plants:

Tall, graceful ornamental grasses like Miscanthus, Stipa, Pennisetum, Cortaderia (Pampas grass) and Bamboo.

Tasty Plants:

Culinary herbs like sage, thyme, chives, parsley, basil and ornamental angelica, plus fruits from trees and bushes, soft fruits like strawberries, and vegetable crops and delicious fresh salad leaves straight from the garden!

*Lavandula species are listed by Defra as Xylella Host Plants of concern to the UK. For further information please visit the Plant Health Portal and read the latest High Risk Host list. Suspected cases of Xylella fastidiosa or any other non-native plant pest must be reported to the relevant authority. All Xylella host plants should be sourced responsibly.

INTERESTED IN FINDING OUT MORE?

PLANET NATURAL

Many benefits of sensory gardens

See: https://www.planetnatural.com/...

RHS Campaign for School Gardening

Plants for a sensory garden

See: https://schoolgardening.rhs.or...

THRIVE

Sensory Gardens

See: https://www.thrive.org.uk/File...

LIVING COLOUR LANDSCAPES

Using colour therapy in garden design