Learn to Garden — Gardening with Casey Joy

Mindfulness. It’s really IN right now.

Bloggers blog about it, meditators meditate on it, yogis rant and rave about it mid-pigeon pose. If you spend any time in the corner of the internet that deals with health and mental wellbeing you will be more than familiar with the idea that being ‘present’ and cultivating a general awareness (and acceptance) of your own mental state is, like, THE thing to be doing.

According to the Mayo Clinic, ‘Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you're sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment.’

Often this is achieved by watching the breath (paying close attention to the sensation of inhaling and exhaling), or by ‘grounding’ yourself in other physical sensations - has your foot gone numb, is your left elbow itchy. It can also involve being mindful of thoughts, inner dialogue and emotions.

In a busy, tech obsessed and often frenetic world, there is reliable scientific evidence that taking pause to stop and really be aware of your inner and outer world can reduce anxiety, help to alleviate stress, depression and even physical pain.

Which is all great… if you actually reliably take the time to meditate.

How many times have you decided to become a great meditator? At the time of writing, I have decided approximately four or five times. It goes like this:

Casey notices she is becoming increasingly stressed and tightly wound
Casey notices she likes to clack her teeth together at rapid intervals when scrolling through instagram, as if her mouth has become a percussive instrument
Casey notices that she’s ruminating and worrying about things and resolves become a zen yogi, beginning with 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation per day
Casey does 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation per day for somewhere between 1 and 30 days (30 is my current record), until…
Casey accidentally forgets entirely about being a yogi and goes back to scrolling instagram and gnashing her teeth

The good news is I am quite proficient at maintaining this cycle if not an actual consistent meditation habit. Needless to say, jokes aside I really do think mindfulness meditation has a lot going for it; a view that is increasingly backed up by scientific research.

In this way mindfulness is a lot like exercise; it’s pretty obvious that it’s good for you, the hard part is working out a way to actually reliably integrate it into our lives. Fortunately, once again our gardens are here to help. It is possible (nay, easy!) to grow a garden that facilitates mindful behaviours and can even be used as part of a mindfulness practice.

By growing plants and adding other features that stimulate and appeal to all five of our senses, our gardens can be turned into spaces that help bring us back into the present moment, pull us away from our worries and our screens and generally improve our state of mind a little bit every day. Here’s how to grow a sensory garden for mindfulness.

1. Smell

To understand the power that scents have to capture our imagination it helps to know a little bit about how our brains process sensory stimuli. For the other four senses (sight, touch, sound and taste) sensory input comes into the brain via sense organs (eyes, skin, ears, tongue) and heads straight to a brain region called the thalamus. I remember a 3rd year neuroscience lecturer likening the thalamus to the post office of the brain; receiving sensory information from the body and re-directing it to specific parts of the brain for processing.

Smell is different. Our olfactory systems bypass the thalamus and head straight to the primary olfactory cortex; a brain area that is closely associated with two other regions known as the amygdala and the hippocampus (regions that process emotion and memory, respectively). Because of this close association (and because the olfactory information doesn’t first get ‘sorted’ by the thalamus) olfactory stimuli are thought to have a more ‘direct route’ to our emotions and memories. This may be why scents are so captivating.

How can we make use of this in our gardens? Why, by filling them with perfumed plants, of course! There is no better or deeper way to immerse yourself in a garden than by strolling through it, crushing fragrant leaves between your fingers, kneeling down to smell the musky rain-soaked scent of a winter stock flower, or the sugary perfume of a drooping wisteria blossom.

So, first step for a sensory garden is accumulating a wide variety of scented plants. Here are a few of my favourites:

Scented blooms: Roses, stocks, gardenias, wisteria, honeysuckle, jasmine, daffodils (and other narcissi), frangipani, freesias, moonflowers, orange jessamine, hyacinths, buddleja, lilacs (lilacs need cold winters - Perth is generally too warm), oriental lilies, sweet peas, bearded iris, flowering wattles, orange blossoms.

Scented foliage: Scented pelargoniums (I like rose-scented, lemon-scented, peppermint-scented and one called Lady Plymouth), lavender, mint, thyme, oregano, basil, parsley, sage, dill, native river mint, rosemary, marjoram, savoury, passionfruit marigolds, Geraldton wax, curry leaf tree, bay tree, cardamom leaf ginger, lemon myrtle, lemon verbena, lemon balm, lemon grass, kaffir lime, Vietnamese mint, coriander.

Grow as many of these as you can and, where possible, position them near your windows and outdoor sitting areas, so their scents can waft to you wherever you are.

To practice mindfulness in your garden pick a single plant, find a quiet spot, close your eyes and fully absorb its fragrance. Take note of its characteristics - is it light and sugary or heavy with spice? Is it floral or grassy? Sweet or savoury? Does the scent change and develop over time, or diminish quickly once experienced?

Try to get the full picture of the specific scent of that one plant and commit it to memory. Aside from taking you outside of your own mental chatter this is a great way to learn more about the scented plants in your garden!

2. Sight

Humans are very good at labelling things. This means it’s quite hard to take in the world around us without instantly naming and categorising whatever we’re looking at. I once did a guided meditation that encouraged me to practice putting this habit on pause.

I was sitting in our living room looking out at the garden. It was a blustery day and the wind was whipping through the trees. As part of the guided meditation, I was instructed to attempt to view the environment surrounding me as one whole, unified space, rather than a space composed of discrete objects and things.

For a few seconds - it worked. I unfocused my eyes, practiced not looking at any one thing in particular and suddenly the garden felt like a single living beast. Pummelled by the wind, the trees were all swaying in synchrony; they looked as if they were alive and swelling, surging like waves of green through the garden. It was very cool!

I haven’t managed to grasp that experience again - my fault, no doubt, for being a terribly inconsistent meditator. But I think it’s worth practicing. Find a good vantage point in your garden and try sitting, eyes unfocused. Listen to your breath, clear your mind as best you can and let the visual stimuli wash over you. See the garden as a giant painting awash with colours and movement, and watch yourself fade into the background, enveloped by the life that surrounds you as you dissolve pleasantly into it.

On the flip side, you can also try paying close attention to single elements in your garden. Become obsessively interested in the colour of a leaf, in the curl of a single tendril of a climbing pea. Remember the goal of mindfulness is to become intensely aware of whatever you are sensing or feeling. This could be the garden as a whole, or it could be the tiniest part of a single plant. The key is to practice the kind of sustained attention that enables you to really take in whatever you’re looking at, to see it with a renewed clarity, interest and appreciation.

3. Touch

I’ve heard about a mindfulness meditation course in which the first class centres entirely around a single raisin. The goal is to experience the raisin as fully as possible. So the first step is to simply hold it. Actually feel its weight, its texture, examine its colour and wrinkled skin. It seems ridiculous that a full hour could be spent on a single raisin. But that’s the interesting thing about mindfulness. The more you pay attention to the world around you, the more rich with detail it appears.

It’s easy to forget our gardens can be massively tactile places because we don’t often stop to feel them. Next time you’re in your garden, find a place where you’re unlikely to do yourself injury if you go blundering around. Ideally, sit down in a spot where you’re surrounded by plants. Then just close your eyes.

See how many plants you can identify by touch alone. Find the fuzzy leaves, the hairy stems, silky petals, damp moss, the crumbling soil. So often we rely only on vision when we’re in our gardens, but there is an entire world of tactile information out there if we just choose to look for it.

When therapeutic horticulturalists design gardens for people who are blind they fill them with plants that can be touched, smelled and tasted. It got me thinking that maybe we should all learn to appreciate these overlooked aspects of plants.

If you want to add a tactile element to your sensory garden, focus on creating tactile contrasts between different plants and on growing durable plants that don’t mind a little bit of grabbing.

Here are a few of my favourites:

Baby’s breath - possibly the world’s softest ground cover

Sandpaper wattle - true to its name, the leaves are rough like sandpaper

Tactile grasses - look out for grasses with soft, cotton-y fluffy tips (but avoid lemongrass - it cuts your hands up!)

Lambs ears - also true to its name, the soft puffy leaves of this low-growing plant are like little ears of a lamb

Aloes and agaves - just make sure to touch these somewhat prickly plants gently so you don’t spike yourself

Paperback trees - and other trees with interesting bark, both rough and smooth

4. Sound

The best way to make your garden sound beautiful is to encourage a wide array of insects and local wildlife to visit. They’re an entire orchestra who will entertain you for free. Add a birdbath, native shrubs and bushy trees to provide shelter for birds. Grow lots of flowering plants to attract buzzing bees, and - if you have space - add a trickling pond; not only will you have the gentle sound of running water, but you might also lure in some croaking frogs.

Practicing just sitting in your garden - eyes closed - and listening. I find that I don’t usually appreciate all the sounds in my garden until I shut off the visual input going into my brain. Find a spot right in the middle of your garden and just sit there, eyes shut, ears open. See if you can detect the direction that sounds are coming from, or what animals are producing them. Listen to the wind as it passes through different plants, hear the bees buzzing past, dragonflies whirring, the splash of birds bathing.

And don’t just do this in the daytime. Our gardens come alive with noises at night. They’re louder and often far more dynamic and interesting than our daytime gardens. Crickets chirp and clamour, frogs croak, cicadas click their castanets. Pick a warm night and head outside to sit in the middle of all of it. Listen to everything and try to pick out the different animals contributing to the playlist. Before you go in, take one glance up at the milky way shimmering overhead. Silent, still and intimidatingly beautiful - it is also very worthy of a few moments’ attention.

5. Taste

I firmly believe that all the best gardens can be eaten. Basically, my goal is to one day create something like that scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the Gene Wilder version, which should never, ever have been remade - its perfection is unequalled and untouchable… but I digress), where Willy Wonka throws open the doors to his candy cane wonderland filled with gummy bear trees, raspberry cream mushrooms and edible teacups.

And yes, we might not have actual gummy bear trees, but think about what we do have! Custard apples, mulberries, fresh, plump peaches, spicy radishes, fennel blossoms (have you eaten fennel blossoms??? Because you really, really should), teeny heartsease flowers, sugary cherry tomatoes, Moroccan mint (the best mint there is), cinnamon basil, chocolate mint, garlicky mustard greens, the nectar from a nasturtium (if you’ve never sucked the nectar from a nasturtium flower, add that to the to-do list too - they have a pointy protrusion at the base of the flower, pinch the end off that and suck it like a straw to get at the drop of sugary sweet nectar within).

There’s peppery wild rocket, Tom Yum-esque Kaffir lime leaves, tangy gooseberries, perfumed alpine strawberries, juicy blueberries, faintly cucumber-flavoured borage flowers. And that’s just scratching the surface. Of all the sensory stimuli our garden offer us, the tastes are by far the most varied. Just make sure what you’re tasting actually is edible. Mindfulness can only help you so much, it’s probably not going to cure you of poison-induced stomach cramps.

That said, once you know what you’re growing is definitely edible, make a point of wandering around your garden often, nibbling at things. It might not be the most zen or mindful activity on offer, but damn is it pleasant!

And so ends my guide to growing a sensory garden for mindfulness. It was only once I’d got about halfway through writing this post that I realised it could equally be called ‘growing a sensory garden for kids’, who are possibly the most mindful humans on the planet. Yet to be sullied by neuroses and social comparisons, little kids take to sensory gardens like ducks to water (I have also read that sensory gardens are fantastic for children’s development, AND fingers crossed will also turn them all into nature-loving, eco-warrior gardening fiends). So if you’ve got small humans to entertain there’s double the reason to get these plants in the ground!

Ultimately, I hope this post has helped you dream up a few new ways to enjoy and engage with your garden. In the end, I don’t think it matters too much whether you choose to practice specific mindfulness techniques or just trail a caterpillar around a patch of lawn, watching how its back arches and ripples in the sunshine. However you do it, time spent amongst nature is almost guaranteed to lift your mood, ease your anxieties and help you remember that the world is vastly greater and infinitely more beautiful than the posturing bilge that populates our internet feeds.

And with that last, highly opinionated statement - I’m out!

Until next time, happy gardening folks!

Xx Casey