3 April 2015 East Kilbride Post
GARDEN
FeedSenses Your
AS THE SPRING arrives more and more of us will start to spend time outdoors. For many in EK, the garden is the place where
The garden is a place where tiny things become scaled up. Where else can you hear the evening birdsong so clearly without the din of traffic?
ll Where else can you smell the blossoms of fruit trees or even the strangely refreshing smell of wet earth after you’ve given the vegetable patch a watering?
This is just the start, the garden is a sensory paradise that can be ma- naged to exceed the limits of what only needs to be a few square feet of ground. Smells, sights, sounds, tex- tures and tastes can all be incorpo- rated to turn your garden into a ge- nuinely marvellous escape. All you need to know is how.
Whether your garden is small or large, planning is a worthwhile star- ting point. To get the most out of any space and your budget, you need to think specifically about who is going to use it, what they’re going to be using it for and what their preferen- ces might be based on their tastes and age.
A garden can be focused on re- st and relaxation or energy and exer- cise – or both. Here's our pick of the sensory lot to give you some ideas.
Chameleon plant, Houttuynia cordata ’ Chameleon ’;
three-toned foliage which smells of lemon when bruised. You will see these everywhere around East Kilbride gardens and they can be quite invasive. The colours, especially the yellow and red, are best in good sunlight. It will brighten up dry shade, where it spreads only slowly, which is another plus. Familiarity can breed contempt of course but, like many maligned plants, when you take a step back to admire it closely, only then does it free it's true beauty.
Love-in-a-mist Nigella damascena; sun-loving,
bright blue flowers. Best to plant as a seedling as they don't transplant too well. Perfect for kids to grow as they take minimal effort and nurture for maximum dramatic return.
Here we take a look at filling your senses with touch, taste, smell, sound and of course sight. A sen- sory garden can be a fun and exhilirating project that can give pleasure to you, your children and your grandchildren for years to come.
SIGHT
Sunflowers, Helianthus annuus; a bright, bold looking flower that can grow by 30 cm's in height during a week,
in ideal conditions (not EK sadly). Also adorns covers.
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ll With a wealth of colour to explore, sight is pro- bably the easiest sense to satisfy within a garden. Flowers and other plants are a given but don’t over- look other tactics such as light and shade and ob- jects and planting at different heights that draw the eye skywards or down towards the ground where unusual flora and fauna might be equally intriguing.
Colour can be used to bring out the extraordinary in everyday objects. Why can’t a garden shed be pink instead of brown, why not paint your own purple, red, blue, or yes, yellow-brick road?
Providing kids or grandkids (or grandparents) with a magnifying glass might help them to see better detail in flower heads or small insects.
they can go outside and be on their own, undisturbed in their tiny corner of controlled nature and strangely, where their senses start to come to life.
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