Designing Gardens – What’s it really about?
Designing gardens has little to do with choosing plants and planting them in a certain way. It’s not even about fashion, style or design principles. It’s all about emotion.
The ‘success’ or not of any garden depends on how it makes us feel. A garden can influence our behavior; determine how and where we move, where we sit, what we do. It can direct our interaction with others and with the garden itself.
Think of a beautiful space. For many this includes large shady trees to create an atmosphere of enclosure and safety. Rich green lawns undulate down a light slope to a natural pond. A soft mulch path invites you to meander towards a wooden bench nestled in a nook of lightly clipped and sweetly scented dark green shrubs. It beckons you to bide and survey the expanse of green.
Add a warm sunny day, a gentle breeze, some comfy cushions and a refreshment of choice and the feelings of delight and serenity just get better and better!
We are human – we need space, light, security, delight, beauty and connection. Gardens can give us all this and more – and we experience it on an emotional level.
Being intensely individual, we each experience gardens differently. Many of us enjoy the peace, tranquility and distinctive aromas of the Australian bush, with its grey green color scheme, fine foliage and variety of grasses. Some prefer formal clipped hedges and beds of brightly colored annuals.
The casual appearance of cottage or productive gardens has wide appeal, with the added advantage of feeding us as well.
Sometimes gardens engage and influence our emotional life in negative ways bringing us discomfort and making us feel tired and ill at ease. Some gardens can make us feel disinterested, where there is little variety or sense of adventure.
But the ones we love, where we feel at home, are the gardens of Sanctuary, bringing us joy and contentment. I sincerely hope that you are able to often wander and rest in such a place!