Best Way to Site Plants in Your Garden in Feng Shui

The plants in your front garden help to create atmosphere. In general a well-stocked front garden with a variety of plants will carry a healthy balance of chi energy. You can adjust this to suit your particular needs.

The main consideration is whether you want an open-plan garden where chi energy can move freely, encouraging you to feel dynamic and active, or a more imaginative layout where a labyrinth of different plants forces the chi energy to move in a more convoluted fashion.

An open-plan garden, with a few carefully selected plants and a large lawn allows chi energy to move easily around your garden and into your home. This is preferable if you want to be more outgoing, social and active. It could also help you to be more ambitious, open-minded and broaden your vision.

A garden with many plants, flower beds, bushes, trees and curved paths will create an imaginative atmosphere that could make you feel more creative, artistic and thoughtful. This would be an ideal place for generating original ideas, feeling more inspired and retreating into your own world.

The plants you choose will influence the way you feel in your garden. Plants with spiky, pointed leaves, such as yuccas and palms, will create an exciting atmosphere in your garden, whereas plants with large floppy leaves, such as hostas and ferns generate a calmer feeling.

If you want greater privacy or live near a busy road it will help to grow a hedge at the front of your garden. The higher the hedge the more isolated and private you will be.

Siting plants in the garden

Think about any changes you might want to make to your life and, using the above information, how changes to your garden could help you to achieve this. Note the existing balance of plants to open areas and the different kinds of plants in the garden.

If you want an open-plan garden, draw up plans to remove some of the existing plants, if necessary, and create a larger lawn. Explore the possibility of using more plants with pointed leaves. If you have a hedge consider lowering it and also pruning larger bushes or trees to allow energy to move more easily.

If your aim is to create a closed and intriguing space, consider the options for introducing a taller hedge and a greater variety of plants. Add plants, shrubs or bushes to places where they will break up any straight lines and enclose open spaces.