Tag Archives: sound in the garden

Design trends

How to Make a Garden your Own

Adding personal touches makes a garden your own.

The cry for help came from a new homeowner. She loves her lovely new home but feels everything in the garden is in the wrong place. She wishes to create “a haven for birds and bugs and give it a sense of life.” The plant palette here is far different from Tennessee where she’s from but she describes herself as enthusiastic and willing to learn. Boy, do I have lots of ideas for her.

Outdoor spaces are just more inviting if they feel like a real room with a ceiling, walls and attractive flooring. An arbor or pergola is a good way to provide a lid on your outdoor space. If you have natural trees in your garden they can shield you from the sky in some areas and open up other areas to passing clouds and sun. You can achieve a similar effect with groups of potted trees that shade your sitting area. Japanese maples, ornamental plums, cherries or crabapple are just a few of the trees that do well in pots. If you like to grow edibles plant a fig in a pot to provide some shade.

Creating an outdoor room with vines will make your yard feel cozy. They readily provide the walls to enclose a space. Views from one part of the garden may be partially open, framed by vines or blocked entirely. Shrubs can also be used to create garden rooms but vines form a thin living wall that is quickly established. Creating boundaries with vines also adds vertical design elements to an otherwise flat landscape. By adding walls and a ceiling to your garden, you’ll be able to enjoy another dimension in addition to more color and fragrance.

The sounds you hear while in the garden are part of the experience, too. The atmosphere just wouldn’t be the same without the sound of rustling grasses, wind chimes or birds splashing about in the bird bath or fountain. Auditory elements can even come from the sound of gravel crunching underfoot as you walk or the wind in the trees.

Texture in the garden refers to the overall visual texture of the plants. Large, bold foliage like Flowering Maple, Pride of Madeira, rhododendron, viburnum, oakleaf hydrangea or hosta make a large garden appear smaller. Soft, fine foliage will make the garden appear larger by giving it the allusion of more space. Examples of finely textured plants include ornamental grasses, Breath of Heaven, ferns and asters. You might use different textured plants in different parts of your garden to get the affect you like.

Create an interesting path experience with color & fragrance

Blur the garden’s boundaries to make it more interesting. You won’t be able to see the whole garden at one glance if you curve the path behind some shrubs, tall plants or sheer, see-through perennials. Leave some wild areas for the birds and bees to join you. Garden organically and mix in native plants wherever you can to keep the garden healthy.

Garden lighting is another easy way to add atmosphere to your garden. As inviting a space a garden might be during the day it becomes magical at night when lit. Solar lighting has come a long way. Walk your property and decide the most effective spots for lighting. Pathway lighting can illuminate the driveway, walkways and steps and mark the edges of areas like ponds and patios. Accent lighting can define a space and show off plantings, benches or illuminate a pergola. Spotlights direct the eye up into trees, show off garden art or accent a focal point.

Sound is important too. Ornamental grasses rustle in the wind or add a fountain with running water. An urn fountain with pebbles and plants at the base would be a simple choice. A drilled basalt column fountain or basalt dish fountain would look natural in the forest here.

Your sense of smell is important also to create atmosphere in the garden. In the spring the smell of ceanothus fills the air. Then the stargazer lilies start to bloom followed by lily-of-the-valley, daphne, flowering crabapple, carnation, iris, heliotrope, lavender, alyssum and a couple of roses. By enjoying the fragrance of both flowers and the foliage of salvia, lavender and breath of heaven as I walk the garden I’m able to add another dimension to the garden.

Creating atmosphere in the garden is the art of combining space, time and light to make a garden that reflects who we are. It’s different for every gardener. One person might like straight rows of vegetables while another scatters poppies and nasturtiums randomly. Whatever appeals to you it should be close to your heart and that’s the atmosphere in your garden that’s right for you.

Design trends

The Sound of Music in the Garden

Japanese Forest Grass provides a soft rustling sound in the garden. It’s pet friendly and both cats and dogs enjoy nibbling on the foliage.

If you’re like me you hear different things when you are outside. I hear the buzz of hummingbird wings and their little chirp up in the trees waiting to defend their feeder. They bring a smile to my face. Sometimes it’s the silence that gets my attention. Where are the chickadees or pygmy nuthatches or the raucous scolding of the jays? Where is the wind, the rustling of the forest grass leaves? Other times the quaking of the redwood boughs a hundred feet up makes the garden come alive like giant wind chimes. Sound adds dimension to the garden.

I consider the music of the garden as well as plants and people when developing a design. I’m talking about how water, wind and wildlife play a big role in the music of a garden. Even the crunching sound as you walk on a gravel path brings your garden to life.

The sound of moving water in the garden not only attracts birds but soothes the soul. It can drown out unwanted neighborhood noise or sound as subtle as a violin. I enjoyed a table top fountain with a bamboo deer scare for many years until the raccoons discovered it. The sound was incredibly soothing on a hot day. Pondless waterfalls are easier to maintain if you aren’t interested in fish or water plants. Small recirculating garden fountains can be placed on your deck or patio or tucked into garden beds. Urn and jar fountains offer a hint of bubbling water and the soothing sound of flowing water to your landscape.

I use to have a different wind chime at each corner of my house. You can tell the direction of the wind, the intensity, even potential changes in the weather just by listening to the chimes. There are bamboo chimes available that produce a peaceful relaxing sound or musically tuned metal tubes or those made of wood or shells. Enhance the wind with these lulling sounds.

The wind is different in each season. Summer breezes cool you and also catch on a billowy plant to bring not just sound but movement. Ornamental grasses are the stars of the garden when the wind rustles through the leaves and seed heads. My Japanese Forest Grass is one of my favorites. Loose shrubs like butterfly bush, hydrangea, spirea, spice bush and bush anemone also sway in the wind and bring sound to the garden. Allow a larger plant like Japanese maple to spill into the path where you will brush against it slightly to create that sound you hear in the forest when you walk. Enjoy the rattle of seeds in pods like those of iris as they dry during the summer.

The sounds of wildlife are my favorites in the garden. Any type of pond or waterfall with some plants growing in or adjacent will attract tree frogs. Buzzing insects collect nectar and pollinate flowers. My simple birdbath is a magnet for robins, spotted towhees, chickadees, warblers, kinglets, purple finches and jays. The rest of their time they are performing expert insect control elsewhere in my garden .Hummingbirds are frequent visitors as they fight for territory and feed on spiders and nectar rich flowers.

Allow your garden to make music.

garden design, grasses, landscape design, water features

Let Your Garden Sing

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waterfall2Each time I’m in my garden it’s a different experience. The familiar buzz of hummingbird wings brings a smile to my face. Sometimes it’s the silence that gets my attention. Where are the chirping songbirds or the raucous scolding of the jays? Where is the wind, the rustling of the forest grass leaves? Other times the quaking of the redwood boughs a hundred feet up makes the garden come alive like giant wind chimes. Sound adds dimension to the garden.

I consider the music of the garden as well as plants and people when developing a design. I’m not talking about the popping sounds that corn makes when they don’t have enough water. Or as it matures, increase in weight, the leaves losing moisture and becoming more brittle, a puff of wind causing the stalks to strike each other and produce a spectrum of sound. Or when lupine seed pods explode with enough force it sounds like someone throwing stones against a fence.

No, I’m talking about how water, wind and wildlife play a big role in the music of a garden. Even the sound of crunching as you walk on a gravel path brings your garden to life.

The sound of moving water in the garden not only attracts birds but soothes the soul. It can drown out unwanted neighborhood noise or sound as subtle as a violin. I enjoyed a table top fountain with a bamboo deer scare for many years until the raccoons discovered it. The sound was iOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAncredibly soothing on a hot day. Pondless waterfalls are easier to maintain if you aren’t interested in fish or water plants. Small recirculating garden fountains can be placed on your deck or patio or tucked into garden beds. Urn and jar fountains offer a hint of bubbling water and the soothing sound of flowing water to your landscape.

Japanese_forest_grass 2A friend of mine has a different wind chime at each corner of his house. He can tell the direction of the wind, the intensity, even potential changes in the weather just by listening to the chimes. There are bamboo chimes available that produce a peaceful relaxing sound or musically tuned metal tubes or those made of wood or shells. Enhance the wind with these lulling sounds.

The wind is different in each season. Summer breezes cool you and also catch on a billowy plant to bring not just sound but movement. Ornamental grasses are the stars of the garden when the wind rustles through the leaves and seed heads. Loose shrubs like butterfly bush, hydrangea, spirea, spice bush and bush anemone also sway in the wind and bring sound to the garden. Allow a larger plant like Japanese maple to spill into the path where you will brush against it slightly to create that sound you hear in the forest when you walk. Enjoy the rattle of seeds in pods like those of iris as they dry during the summer.

The sounds of wildlife are my favorites in the garden. Any type of pond or waterfall with some plants growing in or adjacent will attract tree frogs. Buzzing insects collect nectar and pollinate flowers. My two simple birdbaths are a magnet for varied thrush, spotted towhees, chickadees, warblers, kinglets and goldfinches. The rest of their time they are performing expert insect control elsewhere in my garden .Hummingbirds are frequent visitors as they fight for territory and feed on spiders and nectar rich flowers.

Let your garden to make music.