Being in the garden is always a sensory experience, but have you intentionally added plants to your landscape to create a special fragrance, touch, or taste? It is not unusual to see a sensory garden planted for public enjoyment, but you can easily heighten the sensory experience of both your ornamental and vegetable plantings by considering plants that are especially appealing to the senses.
Sensory gardens help connect us to nature by providing engaging sights, sounds, smells, scents, and tastes. Educators at the University of Illinois Extension note that sensory gardens invite us to view plantings close up, touch plants, and even listen actively. Sensory gardens, which can be large or even container-size, can be used for teaching, relaxing, and multiple therapies, the University of Illinois Extension says.
If you are a gardener, you probably already enjoy how plants look. Walking through your garden for visual enjoyment is a main reason to put in the effort it takes to thoughtfully plant and maintain your landscape. When considering sight in your garden, remember all-season interest: blooms in spring and summer, bright foliage in the fall, and evergreens in the winter. Here are some plants that add visual beauty to your landscape. Cockscomb, Celosia argentea, has crazy color and texture. Begonias and zinnias add bright colors in both their bloom and foliage. Zinnias are also a magnet for pollinators and hummingbirds (which add sound to your garden). Sunflowers are stunning in both borders and vegetable gardens, as is corn. Eggplant is a beautiful plant, and a vast array of peppers have interesting foliage and fruit colors and shapes. Ornamental cabbage has fabulous color and texture right up until heavy snow.
There are many ways to add scent to your garden. Anise hyssop smells like licorice and attracts bees and bumblebees. Old-fashioned phlox has a lovely scent and attracts many interesting pollinators. Carnations have a clove scent, and lilies, especially Oriental varieties, have a very strong scent. Herbs like lavender, basil, and dill have strong scents. The scent of lavender is even therapeutic. If you let clover bloom in your lawn, you will be rewarded by the very sweet scent of its blossoms, especially in early summer. Spring gives us the intoxicating scent of lilacs and hyacinths.
Bring sound into your garden by making it a safe and happy place for birds and pollinators. Add a water feature or fountain. The seed pods of Baptisia, or false indigo, make a rattling sound in the breeze come autumn. Switchgrass and other grasses catch the light and offer the gentle sound of the breeze through their leaves and seed heads. The breeze also creates sound through pines and other evergreens.
Edible plants provide taste on garden walks and in the kitchen. Herbs again are winners here, with chives, mint, and many more. Nasturtiums and pansies are only two of many edible blooms, and don’t forget cherry tomatoes, berries, and grapes, which are fun to eat right off the vine – yet another reason to use pesticides and herbicides sparingly, if at all, in your garden.
Finally, touch is also part of the garden experience. Lamb’s ears have soft, furry foliage. Satiny wormwood has a fine, silky foliage. Wooly thyme is also soft to the touch. Succulents have fat, chubby foliage that is fun to touch. Fir trees have soft needles, and pussy willows have soft catkins, which are such a happy sight in early spring.
Take time as your garden reawakens this spring to enjoy the sensory therapy it offers; it will truly enhance the joy you get out of your garden.
