A Windchime is great way to help create a sensory garden.
Article by Felicity Lightbody
There are few pleasures as enjoyable as strolling through a garden. They are a visual delight, engaging our sense of sight with often vivid colours, and intricate patterns and shapes of leaves and branches. They are also a place of wonder and delight for the sense of smell, whether from flowers, or from aromatic leaves belonging to plants such as scented geraniums. Even pine trees can lend their characteristic fragrance to heighten the scent experience of a garden.
But there are other senses we possess that can be engaged in a garden as well. A recent trend in gardening is to create what is called a “sensory garden,” a place in which many or all of the senses are engaged. For example, the sense of touch may be engaged by growing plants which have soft leaves that invite a visitor to reach out and feel their texture. Planting edible herbs, berries, or fruits can engage the sense of taste, as well as being a wonderful way to give the gardener access to inexpensive, organic produce. Daily walks though the garden during the growing season can yield enough produce for a fruit or savoury salad, as well as instilling a sense of pride in one’s self-sufficiency.
Adding a windchime is a great way to help create a sensory garden. With their alluring and often mystical sound, windchimes catch a soft breeze, making the garden come alive with musical tones. Windchimes can simply and inexpensively add layers of dimension and depth to an ordinary garden, transforming it into a true sensory garden, weaving soft music into the total garden experience.
Sensory gardens need not only be a luxury for the back garden. Flat dwellers in a bustling city may also enjoy the effect of a sensory garden, even if they have no outdoor space, by placing decorative or edible plants on a sunny windowsill, and by hanging a set of windchimes to catch the breeze coming through their open window. The lovely and haunting music of a windchime can dispel the ambient city noises of sirens, horns, and engine sounds, causing the listener to feel a sense of calm and serenity. In this way, a sensory garden can be an escape enjoyed even at the top of a high-rise building.
Wherever a person may live, whether in the countryside or in a city, it takes only a few simple and easy additions, such as placing some beautiful windchimes, to create a wonderful space filled with music, colour, and fragrance that can truly be called a sensory garden.
About the Author
Felicity works as a freelance author for a number of British firms on a part time basis. For more information on wind chimes and other aspects relating to this article such as mobiles and dreamcatchers for the garden, then please visit thewindchimeshop.co.uk/
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