Some gardens are built with a single theme, like a pollinator garden or plants of a particular color scheme. Other gardens are built for a specific use or activity to happen there, like outdoor dining or bird watching.  A sensory garden will pull together multiple aspects by its very nature; to allow the five senses each to have their moment of celebration.

 

Sensory gardens are for everyone and we can use them as opportunities to engage our senses and enhance our feeling of being alive and with the natural world.

 

Laura will share information about sensory gardens in our community and beyond, what elements to include in building your own as well as the opportunity all gardens, and even natural spaces provide to engage our senses and enhance our quality of life.

 

This talk will pull inspiration from the many gardens Laura has visited as well as worked in over the course of her 20+ years in horticulture, as well as multiple sources from writers, poets, artists and other gardeners.

 

Laura’s interests and background in studying nature, plants, and gardening, go back to her studies at Warren Wilson College and then onto her agricultural apprenticeship in the UK in 2003-2005. Through the last 15 years of helping her family with Thyme in the Garden, she has also sought time to build her own artistic and horticultural practice, with managing a community garden and creating journals, drawings and paintings focused on plant growth and cycles.This talk is very connected to what motivated Laura to get involved with gardening in the first place; a drive to learn and connect in a more intimate way to the natural world. It is an ambition to inspire others to do the same!