How to Make a Sensory Garden—the Landscaping Trend That Engages All 5 Senses

A thoughtfully designed sensory garden appeals to all five senses. This type of garden helps you better connect with nature, promotes mindfulness, and reduces stress and anxiety. A sensory garden allows you to widely diversify your plant selection to engage your senses across all four seasons. We spoke to garden experts who offer tips on choosing plants and other elements so you can design the perfect sensory garden for your needs.

What Is a Sensory Garden?

Sensory gardens stimulate all five senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste. "Design elements include the use of patterns, shapes, movement, good visual contrast, and contrast in color," says Linda Langelo, horticulture specialist at Colorado State University. While many senses can be stimulated through plants, sensory gardens also often play with non-natural materials, like water features and hardscapes.

Benefits of a Sensory Garden

Gardens are always beautiful, but there are many reasons why sensory gardens are specifically beneficial for the body, mind, and soul, including the following:

• Accessibility: Everyone can enjoy a sensory garden. "Equally, people with disabilities can benefit from a range of sensory opportunities," says Rebecca Lane, arboretum supervisor at Kew Gardens. "Visually impaired people, for example, can explore through touch, smell, and sound." People with hearing impairments can enjoy the space through touch, smell, and taste.
  
• Mindfulness: The elements of a sensory garden help people practice the principles of mindfulness. "The sense of touch sends a signal to the brain and nervous system, and we focus on feeling," says Langelo. "We start feeling in the present. We focus on a particular plant, and that becomes our world at present. This is mindfulness. It is a state of being present."
• Stress and anxiety relief: "In helping to awaken all five senses, these gardens reduce stress and anxiety for any individual and allow the individual to focus more clearly on their environment, which is the sacred space within the garden," says Langelo.

Choosing Plants for a Sensory Garden

From brightly colored flowers to edible plants, there are many ways to evoke the senses in your garden. Here are some suggestions of what to plant in a sensory garden to stimulate each sense.

Plants for Sight

Choose plants in contrasting colors that provide interest across all four seasons. Colorful wildflowers are a great option for sensory gardens because they attract pollinators, like bees and butterflies, which add movement and an additional visual dimension to your garden, says Lane.

Stimulate your sense of sight even further by playing with structure. "A variety of architecture, height, shape, hues, and patterns can be created with different species of trees, shrubs, and other plants," says Lane. Consider the following plants for your sensory garden:

• False indigo
• Butterfly weed
• Cockscomb
• Zinnias
• Coneflower
• Sneezeweed

Plants for Smell

Add fragrance to a sensory garden. "When creating a sensory garden, scents for all the seasons are a must," says Lane. "Mediterranean herbs provide scent year-round as you brush past them, so I’d recommend planting them close to path edges. Winter flowering shrubs provide some of the most astonishing scents in terms of purity and strength when they are in flower, so a sensory garden for the winter months will never fail to impress."

• Lavender
• Sage
• Basil
• Rosemary
• Honeysuckle
• Anise hyssop
• Hyacinths
• Catmint

Plants for Sound

Introduce gentle sounds in a sensory garden by planting ornamental grasses. When the wind moves the grass it creates a soothing rustling and adds visual movement to the garden. Other plants that create gentle noises are annuals with hard seed capsules, which create small rattles, says Lane. "For a larger garden, bamboo can provide a whole variety of noises depending on the strength of the wind," she says. "Though you must choose the right cultivar or species of bamboo as it can be invasive and take over the garden."

• Northern sea oats grass
• Switchgrass
• Balloon flowers
• Pigsqueak
• Eucalyptus
• Cattails
• False indigo
• Bamboo
• Poppies

Plants for Touch

Include plants with different textures, such as soft flowers, fuzzy leaves, or rough bark, says Laura Walsh, director of marketing for Oasis Forage Products. "Ground cover options such as moss or creeping thyme can provide a soft underfoot sensation," she says. "Large, smooth-leaved hostas or poppies with delicate, silky petals are also excellent choices. Additionally, some crape myrtle varieties have smooth bark, while others feature a textured surface."

• Moss
• Creeping thyme
• Lamb's ear
• Hostas
• Poppies
• Crape myrtle
• Pussy willow
• Fountain grass
• Paperbark maple
• River birch

Plants for Taste

Engage the sense of taste with edible plants, such as herbs, edible flowers, vegetables, berries, or citrus trees, says Walsh. There are many ways to incorporate taste in your sensory garden, no matter its size.

"You might have a designated vegetable patch or perhaps have space on your balcony to grow herbs and vegetables," says Lane. "Many of the most commonly-known edible flowers also come from herbs, such as lavender, sage, and chamomile."

• Chives
• Nasturtium
• Lavender
• Sage
• Apples
• Strawberries
• Tomatoes
• Peppers
• Melons
• Cucumbers
• Carrots
  

Additional Elements for Sensory Gardens

In addition to plants, there are more elements you can add to your sensory garden to evoke the senses.

• Pathways: Design a pathway as an intentional route that allows you to explore and interact with all the garden elements, engaging their senses of sight, touch, sound, and smell, says Walsh. Use different textures, patterns, shapes, and colors to add to the sensory experiences. Include wood chips, sand, flagstone, steppingstones, or concrete, says Langelo. Gravel creates a crunching sound, while brick is a smart way to add extra color.
• Water features: Create soothing sounds with a water feature, like a fountain or a bird bath. "The sound of water can create either a gentle tranquil calm or a joyful or even raucous cacophony," says Lane.
  
• Sculptures and artwork: Add oversized rocks, metal sculptures, stained glass ornaments, or other types of artwork to a garden. "Sculptures or statues can serve as a visually appealing art and add a tactile dimension to the garden," says Wash.
• Birdhouses: Use birdhouses and bird feeders to attract birds to your garden. "The sight and sound of birds, along with their presence, contribute to the overall sensory richness of the garden," says Walsh.