Sensory garden plants for touch: coarse & fine textured foliage

James Lawrence, RHS Principal Horticultural Advisor, has designed this simple, attractive, and most importantly, sustainable border design for you to try at home, with plants that are easy to grow, widely available and look good together.

This simple sensory planting design features a combination of shrubs and perennials

Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs. that will provide extra sensory stimulation with a variety of textures. Once established, they will thrive together in your garden to provide interest throughout the year. 

James Lawrence

The main function here is to provide a range of plants that, once established will provide a variety of textural sensory interest throughout the year. Some of these plants will also attract pollinators.

The Fatsia has a smooth, shiny and leathery feel, while the Stipa and Artemisia are soft and feathery to the touch, and the succulent leaves of the Hylotelephium are fleshy and waxy.

In addition, the Nepeta and Artemisia help to cover bare soil, protecting the soil surface, suppressing weeds and reducing soil moisture loss by reducing evaporation from the soil surface.

Until the plants have filled out, an organic mulch, preferably homemade compost, can help to lock in soil moisture and suppress weeds. Mulches should be spread when the soil is already moist to help trap some of that moisture before it dries out in summer. Avoid spreading bagged potting compost

Can refer to either home-made garden compost or seed/potting compost: • Garden compost is a soil improver made from decomposed plant waste, usually in a compost bin or heap. It is added to soil to improve its fertility, structure and water-holding capacity. Seed or potting composts are used for growing seedlings or plants in containers - a wide range of commercially produced peat-free composts are available, made from a mix of various ingredients, such as loam, composted bark, coir and sand, although you can mix your own. on beds and borders.

1 - Stipa gigantea is a tufted evergreen grass with narrow, arching green leaves and large, feathery panicles of purplish flowers in summer, which ripen to gold.

2 -Ribes sanguineum ‘King Edward VII’ is a deciduous

Deciduous refers to plants (mainly trees and shrubs) that lose their leaves seasonally, usually during autumn. This is a natural process triggered by the season's shorter days and lower temperatures and allows plants to conserve energy during the winter months. shrub with aromatic leaves and deep red flowers in spring, which are followed by white-bloomed black berries.

3 -Fatsia japonica is an evergreen shrub with large, palmate, glossy green leaves that have a tropical look, and small white flowers that develop into black fruits in autumn.

4 - Stipa tenuissima is a short deciduous grass with compact upright leaves and narrow, arching, feathery flowerheads in summer.

5 - Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’ is a deciduous sub-shrub with silvery aromatic leaves and blue-lilac flowers in summer.

6 -Hylotelephium x mottramianum ‘Herbstfreude’ is a herbaceous perennial

Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs. with fleshy, waxy green leaves and clusters of starry pink flowers in early autumn.

7 - Artemisia schmidtiana ‘Nana’ is a semi-evergreen perennial forming a mound of soft, silvery leaves and heads of deep yellow flowers in the summer.

Sensory planting is designed to stimulate the senses of smell, sound, taste and touch, as well as sight. They tempt a visitor to view plants at close range, to reach out and touch, to inhale a fragrance, to listen to gentle sounds, and to actively experience the garden with all their senses.

After experiencing plants by touch always ensure your hands are washed.

By choosing plants that are good for senses, you can improve mood and general wellbeing. The sensory attributes allow people to engage with the environment around them in a way that is meaningful and beneficial to their mind and body.

Using the ethos of ‘right plant, right place’ to create a sustainable planting combination is great for the environment. It helps avoid waste and the use of products and practices needed to try and help ailing plants, such as the application of fertiliser. It also creates robust, long-lived planting that benefits soil health and garden biodiversity

The variety of living organisms (plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms) in a particular environment. Boosting the biodiversity of your garden has many benefits, including supporting wildlife, improving soil health and reducing the likelihood of pest and disease problems. . For more information about sustainable gardening, please see the RHS Sustainability Strategy.