‘Sensory Gardens’ Are Gaining Popularity in Many Homes — and It Involves Just 3 Simple Steps

From journaling to meditation and therapy, people engage in numerous rituals to calm their chaotic minds and cultivate serenity. For many gardeners, this ritual is “sensory gardening.” A “sensory garden” is an invitation to withdraw our attention from the conundrums of daily life and bring it back into the present moment. "In our fast-paced, digital world, these gardens offer a retreat, a place to destress and ground ourselves," sustainable landscaping designer Tom Su from Australia, told US News.

What is a ‘Sensory garden’?

From lively rhythms of colors to the air filled with melodious tunes of birdsongs; from the refreshing aroma of herbs to the tickly touches of tall grasses, a sensory garden is dotted with elements that stimulate the five senses. “A sensory garden is a garden that features plants that evoke the five senses and a lot of times, the plants are usually planted are accessible for people to be able to fully engage with,” explained Angie Andrade, Manager of Therapeutic Horticulture Programs, in a video about Denver Art Museum’s Sensory Garden (DAMSG).

Basic design elements of a sensory garden

The quintessential element, Andrade shared, is to invite people to fully engage in the garden, beyond just colors and textures. Take DAMSG, for instance. Nestled outside the museum's Martin Building, DAMSG's landscape is engulfed in the arms of nature with clusters of colorful plants resembling coral reefs and stately trees towering like landscape gods in wood beds.

Kevin Williams, DAMSG’s horticulture specialist, revealed another element that highlights the beauty of a sensory garden. Tall perennials reaching upwards for the light can deliberately push the eyes of the visitor upwards, engaging their sense of sight and adding vertical drama.

Writing for Martha Stewart, Linda Langelo, horticulture specialist at Colorado State University, added patterns, shapes, movement, visual contrasts, and color contrasts to the sensory garden checklist.

3 steps to design a sensory garden:

Choose the right plants 

They can include grasses, herbs, ornamentals, flowers, fruits, or vegetables. Think colors. Do you prefer bright-hot colors like candy pink or a soothing palette like that of a hilly rainforest? Texture is important too. Su shared that he likes to experiment with different textures while designing a sensory garden. "For touch, plants like lamb’s ear, with its soft, fuzzy leaves, are fantastic. I’ll mix that with the rough bark of a tree-like river birch for contrast," he told US News.

If you like to indulge your sense of smell, plan a herb-based sensory garden with aromatic and fragrant plants like lavender, roses, jasmine, rosemary, magnolia, sweet pea, and gardenia. Planting native species is also a good idea. “Planting native species will invite hungry, noise-making pollinators to your garden on a rotating basis,” Marissa Angell, a landscape architect, told Better Homes & Gardens.

Choose a layout

Experts at Kew Gardens write that a sensory garden can include separate space blocks dedicated to each sense or one large patch designed for a multi-sensory experience. Jennifer Hayman, landscape designer, suggested adding some “defining elements” to highlight the overall layout, for example, shade trees, walkways, shade trees, benches, or water features.

Plan for seasonal changes

According to Meredith Gaines, Senior Plant Expert at Fast Growing Trees, a sensory garden is an opportunity “to enjoy the new senses replacing the older ones as the seasons change. You can even double up on senses to have them year-round, like a camellia that gives bright visual interest in the winter with its flowers instead of only visual interest in the warmer months.”