I love my garden. It’s the one place in the whole world that I can just sit and be. I can hear the birds, watch the bumble bees and enjoy the plants – all in one peaceful place.
It can also get very noisy as we live on a main road so I get about three hours of complete silence in it every day. Other than that it’s usually filled with traffic noise and the neighbours kid playing music loudly.
While it’s possible to get accustomed to the constant drone it can be difficult to find serenity in the garden with so much noise.
However I’ve found a few tricks that help me get the best possible harmony in the garden at all times and I thought I’d share it with you so that you may also find a place of peace in your space.
- Wind chimes – you can have many or just one. Spend a little money on it though so it produces a sound rather than a tin drum being knocked. I’ve got a bamboo one and I’ve placed it at the end of the garden so I can hear it but not too loudly.
- Running water – if you’ve got room for a full blown waterfall then all the better but any fountain or expanse of water you can channel into a spurt makes a wonderful noise in the garden and is extremely relaxing to listen to, especially on a hot summer day.
- Bird bath – this and the following two ideas are to simply get birds into your garden by any means because there is just nothing as beautiful as hearing birds in your garden. It doesn’t have to be a huge decorative structure, a simple elevated plastic dish will be perfect for the birds.
- Bird feeding station – feeding all year round helps the birds and its nice to see who will come and visit your garden at different times of the year.
- Tree – space is a consideration and I would never have thought of planting a tree in our size garden but we had a eucalyptus that was growing in a container and kept falling over so we decided to plant it into the ground. I planted it as far away from the house and other buildings as I could and boy has that tree grown! Now it’s created a two fold habitat. It breaks the air space up for birds travelling through so land in the tree while tweeting away, and it makes a lovely sound when the wind rustles through it. Any space can have a tree in it – even if it’s in a container, it’s just about picking the right tree for the right space.
- Trellis and climbing plants – I’m in the process of getting this set up. If you can extend your fence by a trellis all well and good as this can hide those pesky neighbours and allows you to grow climbers up it to mask some of the noise.
- Screening material – If you have any open style gates (or balcony) around your property you can get willow screening to help reduce noise. It really works and it looks nice as well, plus it’s cheaper than installing solid gates.
Cover photo courtesy of Kaveh Khodjasteh
