How to plan a sensory garden
The best advice on how to plan a sensory garden that stimulates the senses and soothes the mind.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Svittlana
The best advice on how to plan a sensory garden that stimulates the senses and soothes the mind.
It’s important to create safe spaces, such as a sensory garden, where we can slow down and tune into the natural world around us. Plus, you don’t even need a garden to get started.
You might want to create an interactive space for grandchildren in your garden or carve out a haven for anyone you live with or know who will relax in a garden designed around their sensory processing needs. Either way, our guide will walk you through the process.
Planning a sensory garden isn’t too unlike designing any other garden. There will be plants. There will be paths. There will be decorative objects. But each element is chosen with specific sensory engagement in mind.
Sensory gardens are creative spaces, where human design and natural elements combine to create relaxing and engaging experiences.
The creative possibilities of a sensory garden are endless, so this guide with explain how to plan features around the various senses we’re looking to engage.
If you’re already an active gardener, creating and maintaining a sensory garden shouldn’t be much more effort than you’re used to. However, if you decide to install more technical elements, such as a pond or decking, you may want to consult a professional.
Before you start eyeing up your shovel, grab a pen and paper, or your iPad, and work through the following steps, drawing out your vision. Try to be as creative as possible – your design will no doubt naturally become more realistic as you work out what sensory elements will work best in the space you have.
Your sensory garden is being designed with someone you care for in mind. Their specific needs will define almost every element of your creation.
You don’t have to engage every sense in your garden – the benefits will be specific to the needs of people using it. If your sensory garden is intended for someone who is visually impaired, for instance, then it will be more important to prioritise the other senses.
“Senses that are strong for one person may be weaker for another,” says Kew Gardens’ discovery and access learning coordinator Ben White.
“People with disabilities can benefit from a range of sensory opportunities. Visually impaired people, for example, can explore through touch, smell, and sound.
“For people with dementia, multi-sensory experiences have been shown to engage the memory centres of the brain more strongly than experiences where one sense, especially sight, is used alone.
“This can lead to better short- and long-term memory, improved mood, and better mental function – effects that linger even after leaving the garden.”
Of course, you don’t have to have a disability or neurodiversity to benefit from a sensory garden. Including elements that stimulate all the main senses will make your garden enjoyable and accessible to all.
If the person you’re designing for has any accessibility requirements, you’ll need to make sure that your sensory garden has space for people to move around and enjoy the plants safely.
It’s possible to transform your entire existing garden into a concentrated sensory experience at home, but you may prefer to designate a certain area that’s easy to reach. Some things to consider that will affect your chosen location are:
You don’t actually need a garden
You can easily create sensory experiences for people with natural plants and objects indoors too.
“Many common houseplants and cut flowers can be great to explore with different senses,” says White.
“Try to get plants with a range of smells, textures and colours. Some easy ideas could be fragrant lilies, wavy dracaenas, rough and pointed cylindrical snake plants, or soft and fuzzy willow cuttings.
“You could even play ‘green noise’ indoors (like the sound of birdsong or the trickle of flowing water) to add to the experience.”
As with most cultivated outside spaces, plants – whether that’s vegetables, trees, shrubs or flowers – will be a core feature of a sensory garden. But you may want to add other features that will help everyone to relax in the space.
“The garden should provide a range of sensory opportunities and not just rely on planting,” says Claire Francis, commercial and communications manager for Sensory Trust (a national charity specialising in inclusive and sensory design).
“For example, seats to sit and listen to birdsong, sculptures to touch, and shelters to allow access and comfort all year round.”
She points out that there are many sensory experiences that are not formally categorised as one of the ‘main five’ – for example, a sense of balance, temperature, space and enclosure.
Providing seating and shelter can successfully address this, and will no doubt affect what and how you plant around them, which is why it’s helpful to plan these features first.
The location and central features of your sensory garden will determine where your plants will go. Sensory planting is much more intentional than a regular, ornamental garden. That’s because you need to consider how a person can physically interact with the plants.
You may choose to install an organic no-dig vegetable garden, or opt for raised plant beds, depending on the garden’s intention and accessibility needs.
“Avoid deep borders, in order to enable close contact with all of the plants,” says Rebecca Lane, arboretum supervisor at Kew Gardens.
“The position of different elements in a sensory garden is also crucial, so choose the design carefully to ensure the user is tickled as you move from one element to another.”
She adds that designing smaller paths between planting beds (if you don’t need to accommodate a wheelchair or walker) will help to increase intimacy as plants right up to the path brush against you.
Even if you’re not intentionally planting to engage sight, it’s likely your sensory garden will be easy on the eyes. Sight is the easiest sense to design a garden for, as so many plants naturally have attractive and unusual patterns and colours to look at.
Safely placed mirrored objects (ensuring they won’t smash) can heighten the visual appeal of plants nearby and reflect sunlight around darker areas of a garden.
Milly Sell, content designer at gardening for health charity Thrive, suggests the following to create visually engaging elements that go beyond a ‘normal’ garden:
Lane suggests that where space allows, any of the ‘paperbark’ trees are a true sensation – the peeling bark in thin layers that glow with the sun shining through. She recommends Tibetan cherry, paperback birch and paperback maple.
Smell, emotion and memory are wonderfully interlinked, so it makes sense to choose plants that are meaningful to the people using your sensory garden. While prioritising favourite smells in your design, bear in mind the people you are designing for and how they respond to scents.
“Be mindful that everyone processes scent differently, and for some people, this could be overpowering,” says Francis.
“Instead, look for plants whose scent is activated upon touch, for example herbs and pelargoniums [also known as tender geraniums].”
Lane notes that Mediterranean herbs provide scent year-round as you brush past them, so she recommends planting them close to path edges.
"Winter-flowering shrubs, such as the honeysuckle Lonicera & Winter Beauty provide some of the most astonishing scents in terms of purity and strength when they are in flower," says Lane.
Gardens naturally produce all sorts of sounds, including insects buzzing, birdsong and leaves rustling.
You can add sound with wind chimes and dry out seed pods of flower heads, such as the Papaver somniferum ‘Black Paeony’, which can then be used to rattle the seeds contained inside.
Broom shrubs, peas, violas, lupins and the inedible squirting cucumber (also called Ecballium elaterium) are all examples of plants that ‘explode’ their seed pods when they’re ripe.
Watch Sir David Attenborough laugh with joy as he watches and listens to a plant’s exploding seed pod.
“For a larger garden, bamboos can provide a whole variety of noises, depending on the strength of the wind,” says Lane.
“Though it’s important you choose the right cultivar or species of bamboo as it can be invasive and take over the garden. Always seek professional advice if you’re unsure.”
When choosing things to include in your sensory garden that will be touched, it’s essential to remember that these elements must be hardy (especially if there are children around).
As people will expect to be able to interact with all elements of a sensory garden, as a rule, it’s a good idea to avoid any plants with thorns or sharp textures, and anything that might be toxic
Lane suggests doing research to avoid poisonous plants, as well as washing hands after touching plants. There are plenty of good choices for tactile plants.
“There are some plants out there that urge you to reach out and stroke.”
A popular one for children is love-in-a-mist – the annual blue and/or white flower, which is adorned with frothy thin foliage.
The flower buds of magnolia species emulate rabbit ears; the leaves of lamb’s ear and rose campion (also called Lychnis coronaria) are soft to the touch, similar to the ‘bunny tails’ of fountain grasses (also known as Pennisetum).
Sell says that as well as tactile plants, gardeners can include smooth pebbles, wooden trellises and ceramic pots. Different walking surfaces (such as gravel and decking) can add the appeal of a different feel underfoot, but make sure to choose a material that everyone can safely enjoy.
Francis advises that you steer clear of very sharp spiky plants, such as firethorn, and refer to the Horticultural Trade Association’s Dangerous plants.
Like sight, planning items in a sensory garden for taste is fairly straightforward, as long as you make sure there are no toxic plants that could get into the wrong hands (and mouths!).
Herbs, fruit trees and vegetables are fantastic ways to provide safe, delicious natural nibbles throughout the year. Of course, these plants may need a little more nurturing in different seasons.
If you’re not able to commit time each week to tend to them, it might be worth choosing edible plants.
If you’ve never planted a vegetable before, here’s a handy video that could see you get going in just one hour.
You may want to create some signs or labels, explaining what’s growing and what people should do (e.g. rub these leaves softly).
This depends on what the people using the garden need – a visual prompt to jog memory, perhaps, or to explain things to children – and your personal preference.
If you have a large, themed or sectioned area dedicated to each sense, you may want to signpost this.
You can buy garden markers and in many cases even personalise them with bespoke messages so they’re unique to your sensory garden.
Once you’ve planned out every element of your sensory garden, it’s time to put your ideas into action. Be aware that a sensory garden will require upkeep once installed.
Pay extra attention to any elements that need weatherproofing or additional care – such as a water feature, sandbox or anything made from glass or fabric.
Follow any manufacturers’ guidelines as well as growing instructions.
Once a month, check in for safety and accessibility to make sure nothing’s changed – but otherwise treat it and upkeep it seasonally as you would your usual garden.
Introduce the person or people you’ve designed your sensory garden for carefully (again, depending on their individual needs).
When you’re ready to show off your hard work and bring people to your sensory garden, perhaps draw a map to familiarise or explain certain features to them. Ultimately, your new creation is all about leaning into the sensory experience.
Now all that’s left to do is enjoy some time interacting with nature. Tune in and notice how everyone feels after seeing, touching, tasting, smelling and listening to the plants and objects you’ve chosen.
“We have seen how spending time in a sensory garden can calm anxiety and agitation and foster a calmer, more positive outlook,” says Francis.
She adds that people’s circadian rhythms can be better regulated by spending time outdoors, which in turn means better quality sleep.
“A garden can spark conversation with loved ones, motivate more physical activity, and reconnect people with the daily and seasonal rhythms of the natural world,” Francis continues.
“The more senses we engage, the richer the experience and the more we remember. With imaginative sensory design and sensitive attention to detail, a garden becomes a sensory feast.”
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