Sensory Garden

Stimulate all your senses with plants in our all ability access garden!

The Sensory Garden has been built to stimulate all the different senses. There are plants that smell, plants that rustle, plants that taste, plants that are bright colours and plants that are textured.

The sensory garden is accessible to people with limited mobility and there is plenty of space for wheelchairs, pushchairs and little children to explore safely.

The garden has been designed to be interactive, we've included such things as a solar powered water feature and large benches with carvings cut into the seats and backs - see if you can fit your hand in the hand prints or find a matching leaf! The centre of the sensory garden has a large raised bed, this is planted with a collection of scented and textured plants, the central space inside the bed has a mosaic on the floor, an animal logo, can you guess what it might be?

Although the sensory garden was designed and built to be a visitor attraction and not especially a wildlife area, the nature of the plants that we have used means that it is still a great place for wildlife. In the summer one of the first plants that you notice as you enter the garden is a large buddleia, this is commonly known as the butterfly bush. On a sunny day this bush is alive with many different butterflies including Red Admiral, Tortoishell and Painted Lady to name a few. See how many different varieties you can count when you visit over the summer!

The raised bed which is planted with scented herbs is also great for wildlife, the different herbs attract a wide range of insects as they fly around searching for nectar. On sunny days if you stand in the centre of the bed it can seem like the whole bed is buzzing around you!

Our sensory garden has also attracted some wildlife they we don't want! Some of the plants we used are not only pleasantly scented for humans but they are also very tasty for rabbits! There are many ways to overcome a rabbit problem but one of the simplest for this situation is to try and use plants that rabbits don't like the taste of. Sometimes though, this is only found out by trial and error, there doesn't seem to be much logic to the actions of a hungry rabbit!