Enhance Your Garden Design With Five Senses

When you create a garden, it should stimulate all five of your senses. Sight is often overrated. Most beautiful gardens are appreciated from a distance.

Gardens are sensuous. Usually you refer to them from how pretty they look, or how nice it smells, to how cool or relaxing it feels. However, the real power of a garden lies in its innate ability to improve your attitude. Many studies show that a beautiful or harmonious environment can stimulate creativity and productivity, whereas dirty or ugly surroundings contribute to an equally negative mentality.

When a garden appeals to all your senses, you definitely want to be part of it. The beautiful colors of tropical flowers, scent of fragrant spice plants, the sound of rustling water or the blip-plop of raindrops, the cool feel of grass or cengal wood and the taste of sweet fruit - there are countless ways you can create that outdoor living space with Malaysian Garden.

Malaysian Garden emphasizes on living in your garden by involving all your 5 senses. It is far different from the Japanese garden designs principles. By stirring your sight, sound, smell and touch, you simply must pay the garden a visit, sit in your balcony, or, take a walk in the garden, literally.

Stimulating The Five Senses

		Sight
		The first sense that you awaken is sight when you walk into a Malaysian Garden. Green is easy to the eyes, and soothes frayed nerves. The contrast of wood against stone, water against earth, and green throughout is beautiful. Lots of green shrubs and plants, complemented by cool earthly colors of wood, lighting floods, and terracotta, make for a rejuvenating garden.
		Touch
		The touch of cold water is refreshing. Do you feel good when your bare feet touches the grass? Let your hand drift lazily in the pond, snuggle cozily on the cool wooden decking, or get comfortable atop the timber bench.
		Sound
		To further calm your soul, you need to achieve the right pitch and volume of natural sound. Thus, if you are meditating or collecting your thoughts, nothing works better than the sound of water trickling unto the pond surface, bird chirping in the air, or leaves rustling in the gentle breeze.
		Smell
		Add in the fragrant aroma of certain flowering plants or spice shrubs. They help to stir your senses when the wind carries a whiff from tropical fragrant plants, local flowers, or derive pleasure from the smell of spice plants.
		Taste
		Plant some serai wangi, daun pandan, or cili padi in pots around your garden. Include them in your cooking. Have a picnic with your family and entertain your friends outdoor. The right company and beautiful setting will surely enhance the pleasure of your meal.

In the end, it's all about pleasure and beauty. Imagine cuddling up with your loved one out in your garden, under a canopy of stars, snuggled up on a cool timber decking lined with pillows, the light breeze carrying the scent of aromatic candles, and sounds of gushing water gently muted by plants hiding your little nest from prying eyes.

The concept of 5 senses gives the garden a soul – not just individual components or landscape ideas that lumped together. It also has the elements of feng shui. You can apply it for your pergola, garden pond, rock garden, garden roof, cottage garden, and even balcony. As a result, this garden design with 5 senses gives you both the sensuality, the tapestry of Mother Nature, and the charm right in your home.