Green Fingers: Enhance your pleasure with sensory delights
Your enjoyment, wellbeing and mindfulness can be enhanced by including the five senses in your garden, sight, smell, taste, touch and sound.
We have made a great leap forward in our standard of living and that pace has accelerated and continues each year.
While much is positive and we certainly do not want to go back to what existed 50 years ago, there are some downsides, which have crept in. That includes eating too much convenience and processed foods, coupled with less exercise, with the inevitable results.
The first thing is to look after your own life in every aspect and that initially and simply means keeping warm, dry and fed.
Once you have achieved this you will be energised to do more things, including helping others in the community, which in turn will be radiated outwards.
It is a well-known fact in army circles that to deprive your men with those three things is to make them weak, dispirited and vulnerable, both mentally and physically.
The mind can be a tricky or complex matter depending on how you view it but if you welcome and embrace it, the feedback will come back to you in bucketfuls.
The calming power of nature is huge and all you have to do is immerse yourself in it and it is free.
Life can be stressful at times for a number of reasons and can be short or lengthy depending on the circumstances and person. It is not always easy, convenient or fast to get away from our concrete jungle but your garden is where you can create your own refuge, oasis and private area to chill out.
Whatever space you have available, it is possible to create your own private escape where you can feel free from the outside world, even on a balcony of an apartment. I admit the smaller the space the more creative you might have to be but I have seen some amazing results in tiny areas where it is very snug and cosy.
With larger spaces there is more scope to create many different designs and themes, all of which provide secluded areas for you to spend a while relaxing.
It is important to have time out, as and when you wish or can, and do make use of plants that can give more than pretty flowers. These are called collectively ‘Sensory Plants’.
Your enjoyment, wellbeing and mindfulness can be enhanced by including the five senses in your garden, and they are sight, smell, taste, touch and sound.
Sight is the easiest to create as you substitute your bare area with the addition of colourful plants placed in an attractive way. They can be used to cover physical barriers too, behind which you can create secret nooks.
Do use as wide a spectrum of colour as you can to carry through the seasons with foliage, flowers and berries.
Smell comes in the form of fragrance in flower or foliage. This might reduce your choice of plants but it is possible with a little planning to have some scented plants at any time of year.
Taste is mostly a seasonal attraction with the addition of herbs, vegetables and fruit, while touch can cover most of the year unless you have space to cater for a fuller range of plants such as trees, shrubs, perennials and herbs.
Lastly, we have sound and that is more difficult to create when there is no wind but non-plant features using trickling water or cascades will provide subtle and calming sounds.
Keeping our plants free from weeds, well ventilated, watered and fed will make the plants stronger and able to withstand attacks by many undesirables.
I know it is old fashioned but we regularly spray a weak soapy mix over any plant that we suspect of getting attacked by a pest and believe it works.
If you have any queries or comments you are welcome to share them with me on 051-384273 or orchardstowngardencentre@hotmail.com and if of general interest I will include it in a future article.
