Sensory garden

Entrance to a sensory garden in Bremen. The 'Blind People's Garden' (Blindengarten) in Knoops Park is designed to allow people with visual impairments to find their way around the garden and experience its features without assistance.

A sensory garden is a self-contained garden area that allows visitors to enjoy a wide variety of sensory experiences. Sensory gardens are designed to provide opportunities to stimulate the senses, both individually and in combination, in ways that users may not usually encounter.

Sensory gardens have a wide range of educational and recreational applications. They can be used in the education of special-needs students, including autistic people. As a form of horticultural therapy, they may act as therapeutic gardens to help in the care of people with dementia.

Sensory gardens can be designed in such a way as to be accessible and enjoyable for both disabled and non-disabled users. A sensory garden, for example, may contain features accessible to the disabled individual such as: scented and edible plants, sculptures and sculpted handrails, water features designed to make sound and play over the hands, textured touch-pads, magnifying-glass screens, and braille and audio induction loop descriptions. Depending on the user group, other provisions may integrate sound and music more centrally to combine the play needs of younger users with their sensory needs.

Many sensory gardens devote themselves to providing experience for multiple senses; those specialising in scent are sometimes called scented gardens, those specialising in music/sound are sound gardens where the equipment doubles up to provides an enhanced opportunity for strategic developmental, learning and educational outcomes.

Sensory gardens usually have an enhanced infrastructure to permit wheelchair access and meet other accessibility concerns; the design and layout provides a stimulating journey through the senses, heightening awareness, and bringing positive learning experiences.

Design

Sensory garden design is generally based around the five Aristotelian senses, but it can also include other senses such as proprioception and balance. In addition to plants, non-living elements, such as water features and sculptures, may be incorporated.

Sight

Sight components in a sensory garden include traditional garden elements like colourful plants and flowers, which are sometimes clustered together to assist people with vision impairments. They have a diverse variety of colours, shape, size, and texture. Bright colours from flowers can activate the colour centre of the brain. Colourful and native plant species can be used to attract birds, butterflies, and insects to the garden, which can add additional sight variety.

for a soft flow to the garden ornamental grasses are added and can be kept all season round to create dimension. adding ornamental grasses creates a drama effect to the space. Some times water features like ponds and fountains allow for luring in wildlife like birds allowing people to enjoy bird watching.

Sound

Sound components in a sensory garden are often things that make sounds naturally in a breeze. This includes plants like bamboo, grasses, and trees, as well as non-living elements like bells and wind chimes. Water features and birds are also common sound components. Implementing spaces that allow for other insects and animal to be happy will also create a natural soundscape. Bird baths are used to attract them and allow an inviting space for them to spring and splash around in.

incorporating different texture walk ways can allow for different sounds and stimulate the ears. For example you can use a loose gravel for a crunchy effect, using concrete for a more dramatic sound (depending on the shoe).

Less common sound components include things like hand instruments (such as drums), echo spaces, and chiming stepping stones.

Smell

Adding plants that have an aroma actually enhances the Olfactory Bulb which is the part of the brain process smells. To create this aroma you can use floral fragrances for example lavender, rosemary, some rose cultivars, and man made smells like fresh cut grass. Having aromas in the garden space is important for a more engaging & fulfilling experience. Once one enters the earthy parts of a garden with lots of fragrance can immediately help relax the mind and bring the body back to earth.

Touch

For Touch having “contrasting elements” like seed pods, different texture bark/foliage, plants like lambs ear or viburnum. Having different texture rocks, stone, brick or pebbles can allow for some to want to engage with those materials and feel the different textures. Same goes with plants having a rough to smooth texture can go a long way for engaging the mind. Having touch for sensory gardens is important because is can allow the mind to wonder and feel textures. Having touch can bring more emotion and help destress and calm the mind and lower cortisol levels which is the stress chemical. It can also help us learn and gather information that creates a unique interaction to each individual.

Taste

Vegetables or fruits in the garden space allow to engage the final sensory. Taste is super important as it allows one to experience sweet, sour, salty or spicy flavours. You can use plants like tomatoes, blueberries (if correct soil acidity) raspberry, carrots, herbs and some edible flowers to create a space all can harvest and enjoy from.

encorporating these 5 things in a garden space will allow calmness and help engage the brain in a positive way. sensory gardens are very important for children’s brain development by engaging all the senses at once a child will grow up to be more emotionally and physically in tune. Not only is it beneficial to children’s but also to Alzheimer’s and people / children with autism. Sensory gardens will allow for mental well being and stability especially when grieving or having a bad day. The engaging aspects of a sensory gardens will stimulate and enhance memory, problem solving and encourage outdoor activities. In designs it is important to include access point for those with disabilities for example, those who have limitations like wheel chair, blind or hard of hearing. Making sure that a space created for all to enjoy will promote a happier community. By creating these spaces we are encouraging a more inclusive future

Sensory dementia gardens

Sensory gardens can be designed specifically for people with dementia, a condition that can affect different parts of the brain and many aspects of everyday life, including memory, in which everyday tasks such as walking or eating typically become difficult. Sensory or therapeutic gardens can be used to help reduce the symptoms of dementia without the use of drugs through stimulation of the senses, exercising various parts of the brain. Sensory gardens may elicit positive emotions in people living with dementia, and help improve their quality of life.

Design characteristics may include water features that produces soothing sounds, pick-and-sniff herb and flower beds, and benches with different types of sand or pebbles to sink their feet into. For example, in a sensory garden located in Port Macquarie, Australia, one person enjoys sinking his toes into the sand as it elicits memories of Australia for him, while the gravel reminds him of Scotland where he was born which he does not enjoy as much. Other potential benefits include a calming and relaxing place providing an easy and safe way to exercise with feelings of independence.

Gallery

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  This sensory garden was designed for children with special needs at St Christopher's School in Westbury Park, Bristol, England.
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  The Blindengarten in the Bad Homburg Spa Park (Kurpark) in Germany is a "smell and touch" garden comprising eight thematically planted raised beds (culinary herbs, medicinal herbs, roses, grasses, etc.) arranged around a central fountain that can provide acoustic orientation for blind and visually-impaired people.
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  An experiential feature in the "World of the Senses" (Welt der Sinne). The design of this extensive sensory garden and house in Bremervörde, Germany, was inspired by the ideas of Hugo Kükelhaus (1900–1984) regarding "fields of experience for the development of the senses" and is intended for use by everyone, regardless of disabilities.
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  This sensory garden inside the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, Brazil, is designed to sharpen the senses of touch and smell, and sometimes taste. Visitors with special needs, including the blind and visually impaired, are welcomed by a team of counselors (some of whom are themselves visually disabled). Blindfolded guided tours are also a feature.
• 
  Musical pipes can be played by visitors in the sensory garden at the Building and Construction Authority Gallery, Singapore, which showcases the broad accessibility principles of Universal Design.

See also

• List of sensory gardens
• List of garden types
• Garden design
• Intercultural Garden
• Sensory room
• Sensory tourism
• Smound