This is Weed and this is Wack with WOWDY Gardens. We’re an organic gardening show focusing on doing things on the cheap which means doing them ourselves and today we’re going to talk about Zen gardening or the Chinese term is feng shui feng shui and I before we get going on this I’d like to say I think this concept applies to almost all of our Episodes and all aspects of our gardening
I don’t have as much experience in this that you are a professional landscaper and done a bit of this but we’ve narrowed down six talking points on creating this Zen garden. What are they? Picking your auspicious spot, curve pathways, that’s number two, three balance with yin and yang elements, dark light, I don’t know if that can go into all kinds of things. You plant with intention, plant plants you love and like, incorporate
those, five water features and six a good place to sit and meditate. So this start with number one how do you go about picking the spot? Well like you said yin and yang you want to have a spot that’s in the sun and then a spot that’s in the shade and you want to have sitting areas in both of those locations and plants that will be inviting and make you comfortable as you
as you’re enjoying yourself in these two spots. Absolutely. And yin and yang we want to have a wet spot and a dry spot. We want to have a water feature where there’s preferably running water that can be heard in the garden and then a nice sunny spot where you have some big tall perennials. I agree. To me to me this the space you almost know it when you see it. You know to me that’s Zen garden.
You know, you get that feeling you get that feeling. So you look at you see a little bit of moss and you’re like, Oh my God, that’s beautiful. To me, my favorite inner city Zen gardens are where you can put yourself in an area and almost feel like you’re you’re in a garden in the countryside and not in a city. That’s right. Close your eyes and lose yourself. Yeah. Now that was number one, you know, picking your space. So number two, curve pathways.
In a way that always bothered me. It’s like, what if, what if your house has a straight path from the street to the sidewalk? Does that mean your energy is all messed up forever and you can’t correct it? What’s this white, white curve pathways? Well, the idea is they want energy to flow through any area. You do not want it to be stagnant. And in a straight line, I read energy flows too quickly. Right. Straight lines and corners make straight lines.
Make energy flow too fast and corners make energy stagnant. So you want a slightly curving line on every edge of a bed and the bed would separate the plants from the grass. Somewhere and I’ve always instinctively incorporated this myself with pathways is that let people do the walking first before you create, make your pathway. And in other words, let people create the path and you often notice that.
And then where the grass is worn that, that often is your pathway. Right. You can certainly make a wider walkway that has curved edgings with plants on both sides of it to break up the space. In other words, you want to have plants at different heights in your Zen garden. Right. And I agree. Curved beds are slightly more attractive.
A curved line is more attractive to the eye. It’s a line of beauty as it curves around hillsides. Nature is curvy. It’s not good there. Balance your number three. Balance yin and yang elements. Boy, that applies to all of these topics we’re going over for this Zen garden. Yes. So when we’re talking functionally in the garden, we’re talking for yin and yang, we’re talking about having a plant
that would signify eternity. That would be an evergreen or bamboo, which tends to be evergreen and have green, you know, stems. And then a plant that signifies renewal. That would be a generally speaking, they use weeping Japanese maples. The way I think of it is that you have your high energy plants, which are your often your annuals, your brightly colored full sunflowers.
And then you have your more subtle greens, hostas and stuff that hide off on the annuals and perennials. We’re also talking woody plants. And you know, this move on to number four since yin and yang applies to everything you do in this Zen garden. You plant with intention. When we say that, we mean, I think plant things you love the best and that might harmonize with, you know, the rest of the
writers in your yard, hummingbirds, like a tube shaped flower. So if you love hummingbirds, plant lots of that. I’d say plant some edible plants that humans can eat, some edible plants that animals can eat and some ornamental plants that humans can enjoy. That’s right. When we say plant with intention, let’s not forget about our, our friends, the deer. Yeah. Why, let’s just say wildlife, you know, whether it’s birds, squirrels or deer.
They plant something that they want to eat too, because you know, they’re hungry. They’re just as hungry as we are. Right. Right. Squirrels love, love your bulbs. Now, water features critters need water. Your birds need water. And something about, to me, the water feature needs to be where you’re going to sit and meditate. Oh, absolutely. Have a waterfall there and have a bench. So two people can sit there or a couple of seats. So two people can sit there and enjoy it. And then,
you know, plants around your water feature, lots of lush plants, definitely a place in the shade. Beyond water features, a lot of articles, a lot. I didn’t read that much. I mentioned metal in your garden. Usually chimes are things that you want to put near your window as, as a way to create, create good energy in your garden too. Metal chimes, metal sculpture. Right. So, and you know, you can do this on a balcony. You can do this. You can do this.
And then a window garden and an atrium and all kinds of things. So basically everything we’ve talked about in our previous episodes, I think include Zen gardening in one way or another, because you want your garden to be the kind of place when you’re showing it off to someone, their mouth drops open and they just want to sit in and go, I love it here. I’ve forgotten about all my stress. Let’s just sit here for a while and forget about the, the daily
toil. And in fact, when someone does that in your garden, that’s the greatest compliment they can pay to a gardener. Absolutely. Anyway, enough on this. Just go over what we chatted about, auspicious spaces. Pick a really cool spot. A couple of them. A couple of them. Curve pathways. Yeah. That’s just a line of beauty. Curves are beautiful. Balance your yin and yang. That’s important in all aspects of life. You know, plant with intention. What you love.
You think will be a yellow will be good here. Red will be good there. Mix up your colors. They do say that you’re better off using it, making a bench of natural material, not metal for Feng Shui, but if the metal is all you got, well, by all means, use it. I’m not going to get rid of that nice metal outdoor table your your cousin gave me. I think it fits in well. It’s purple. So, you know, plant with intention and water features are
always great if you can incorporate them and a cool place to sit with friends or alone in meditate. That’s right. All right, folks. Thanks for listening. So goodbye from weed and wack. Join us next week. We’ll be back.