Design a mindful garden with Feng Shui

Garden, backyard, or balcony is an extension of our living space. In traditional Feng Shui, the backyard or back balcony represents our children and offspring luck. The front yard or any outdoor space in the front represents our future and career.

It is not about the size or money spent in the area that determines the good or bad Feng Shui, it is more about your thoughts and efforts into designing and maintaining a mindful, balanced, and thriving garden. A larger garden gives you a bigger stage to play with different elements, but it does take more work and possibly more chance of overwhelming or out of control.

A good garden or outdoor space should fit your lifestyle and personality. If you are very busy and no time for the garden, your garden design will be very different from someone who loves working with plants daily. If you have family and kids, you will need to consider their needs and preference too. Maybe a big lawn area for running around, or a vegetable garden for the chef.

So, the first step of garden design starts with your intention, your vision, and at the same time respect your current limitation (budget, time, space…).

The lucky plants, lucky colors, and the 5-element shapes

Lucky colors

In the traditional Chinese culture, including Feng Shui practice, red is a very auspicious color. Many bright and cheerful colors such as orange, purple, yellow are also considered good luck in Feng Shui. On the other hand, white is considered less lucky in Chinese culture.

There are many beautiful white flowers in the garden world. I don’t think you should avoid white color completely. Simply create a balance by adding different colors so it is not completely white.

The Five Element shapes, colors, and seasons

The same as the five elements. Each element has corresponding color, shape, and season. See the chart below. You can use the 5 element theory to enhance or reduce certain elements by adding or taking away related colors and shapes.

Apply Feng Shui charts overlay on top of your garden

Another way to apply Feng Shui is to use charts. There are many schools of Feng Shui, and each school has different Feng Shui charts. If you follow a certain Feng Shui school and have your own chart, you can overlay it on top of your garden floor plan.

If you don’t know where to start, you can check out our annual Flying Star feng shui chart or monthly Flying Star feng shui chart analysis.

Or, if this is too complicated, you can simply trust your intuition and find the colors, shapes, and layouts you love.

Curve and weeping form

One rule in Feng Shui is the preference for a curved form or path. A curved shape or passage is softer and more natural than a straight line. It is considered a better design. In a curved pathway, you can see new views every time you turn in a direction.

A plant form to avoid is the weeping types of trees such as a weeping willow. The association of weeping is just not very auspicious in the Feng Shui world. An upright or upward pointing tree or plant represents more positive and growing energy.

A small weeping plant is fine in your garden as long as you balance it with other types of plants.

Designing the Qi flow and traffic flow

One of the major design at the planning stage is to decide how the traffic flow. We can create a passage or walkway with natural materials such as stones or woods. Decide how you want to enjoy your garden first. Create different zones or points of interest, and decide where is a good place to sit down or walkthrough.

Different zones can be a vegetable bed, fruit tree, lawns, greenhouse, storage, sitting area, lawn, and so on. List the function of each area, and arrange the traffic flow and pathway accordingly.

Organize, store, and maintain

It will be ideal to have a storage area for your tools and seasonal outdoor items. It can be a shed, a greenhouse, or just an outdoor cabinet.

If you garden a lot and you have space, a greenhouse is always a great addition. It gives you more flexibility to control the best environment for different plants, including lighting and watering.

Garden decor, statue, and lighting

Placing garden decor and adding a personal touch is the fun part of creating a unique and energetic garden. A lot of items can be second-handed or re-purposed. This is an easy way to express your personality and experiment.

Common garden decor includes a water fountain, birdbath, birdhouse, wind chime, windmill, garden fairy, and so on.

Lighting can also play a big part in a garden. You can highlight certain plants with lighting, or light up your walkway, or adding string lights to create the right atmosphere. Solar lighting tends to be dimmer but is also a very convenient option.

Follow Nature — direction of the sunlight and characters of plants

A thriving garden must follow nature. Study the sunlight and how it hits your property at different times and different seasons. Study different plants and their preference for soil, water, and sunlight.

A garden is a miniature world. You need to observe, learn, and attend to the needs of different plants regularly. If you put in your effort and work into the garden day in and day out, you will be rewarded with beautiful and abundant blooms and growth. That is the magic of creating a balanced, mindful, and abundant garden.