A garden is typical in many homes. It is homey to enjoy the peaceful and relaxing environment produced by the sun and plants in the garden. Balance is the key element to creating a blooming aesthetic property. And you can draw more energy from your outdoor space by following the fundamentals of feng shui.
Feng Shui comes from the Chinese words for water and wind. It is an ancient Chinese art of positioning objects to balance the yin and yang to embody good fortune. The goal is to derive energy forces and create positive reactions and harmony between an individual and their environment.
Having a feng shui garden can optimize the outdoor space to help make it a soothing and comforting area that can alleviate your wellbeing and spiritual calm. Consider your feng shui garden is a lifelong process. You like to reach toward nature, so in return, it rewards you.
There are many practices to this Chinese concept, and you must apprehend how these feng shui principles can work together to guarantee more incredible rewards. This can be challenging, especially if you’re getting into feng shui with limited understanding. Follow these rules to create harmony in your garden.
Feng Shui comes from the Chinese words for water and wind. It is an ancient Chinese art of positioning objects to balance the yin and yang to embody good fortune. The goal is to derive energy forces and create positive reactions and harmony between an individual and their environment.
Having a feng shui garden can optimize the outdoor space to help make it a soothing and comforting area that can alleviate your wellbeing and spiritual calm. Consider your feng shui garden is a lifelong process. You like to reach toward nature, so in return, it rewards you.
There are many practices to this Chinese concept, and you must apprehend how these feng shui principles can work together to guarantee more incredible rewards. This can be challenging, especially if you’re getting into feng shui with limited understanding. Follow these rules to create harmony in your garden.
Understanding Feng Shui Principles
Yin-Yang In The Garden
Yin and Yang symbolize a balance of energy and can help how you select your feng shui garden colours.
Yin pertains to passive, feminine energy. It is associated with the moon, driving an inward focus, and a sense of calm and balance. To adopt Yin energy in your garden, have cool colours seated in alcoves and create spaces for privacy. Yang refers to active, masculine energy and outward-seeking associated with the sun. Add warm colours in observable, forward-facing areas with a more public eye. This yang energy displays and emits the life force radiating from your home.
Yin pertains to passive, feminine energy. It is associated with the moon, driving an inward focus, and a sense of calm and balance. To adopt Yin energy in your garden, have cool colours seated in alcoves and create spaces for privacy. Yang refers to active, masculine energy and outward-seeking associated with the sun. Add warm colours in observable, forward-facing areas with a more public eye. This yang energy displays and emits the life force radiating from your home.
Using The Bagua Map
If you want to incorporate a Feng Shui garden, the first step is to learn about the Bagua map. The Bagua distributes space energy into eight (8) guas or houses, with the center for nine areas. The nine squares are arranged in rows of three, and you will work with this map on the structure of your garden. Integrating these areas into a balanced design will allow the flow of abundance and happiness in all aspects of life.
Each area represents a different element and aspect of life, helping to determine specific features like colours and textures, to set in the location, and harmonize the garden.
Each area represents a different element and aspect of life, helping to determine specific features like colours and textures, to set in the location, and harmonize the garden.
Nine Areas Of The Bagua
NORTH
- This area pertains to life journey, career and work.
- Element: Water
- Season: Winter
- Color: Blue or black
- Shape: Wavy
- Type of adornment: Combining rock or features and water
NORTH EAST
- This area corresponds to your personal, and spiritual growth.
- Element: Earth
- Season: Seasonal Transition
- Color: Yellow, cream, orange, and brown
- Shape: Square
- Type of adornment: Bench or a Zen garden
EAST
- This area represents family, health, and new beginnings.
- Element: Wood
- Season: Spring
- Color: Green, blue, teal
- Shape: Rectangle
- Type of adornment: Ornamental trees and any wood structures
SOUTH EAST
- Represents wealth and opportunity in your life
- Element: Wood/ Wind
- Season: Spring
- Color: Green, and purple
- Shape: Rectangle
- Type of adornment: carved or handcrafted wood/ moving water
SOUTH
- Fame and success are the dominant energies in this area.
- Element: Fire
- Season: Summer
- Color: Red, orange, purple, and pink
- Shape: Triangle
- Type of adornment: A BBQ, fire pit, or candles
SOUTH WEST
- A social space about love, relationships, and peace.
- Element: Earth
- Season: Seasonal Transition
- Color: Pink, red, yellow, and orange
- Shape: Square
- Type of adornment: Any garden furniture like benches, or furniture set
WEST
- This area signifies children, your inner child, and creativity.
- Element: Metal
- Season: Autumn
- Color: White, gray, and silver
- Shape: Round
- Type of adornment: Metal structures, round structures, globes – balls
NORTH WEST
- This area is focused on travel, helpful people, and benefits.
- Element: Metal
- Season: Autumn
- Color: Gray, white, black, or any metallic colours
- Shape: Spherical or circular
- Type of adornment: Decks, metal accessories or chimes, rock/gravels
CENTER
- This is the Tai Chi area, and it relates to health.
- Element: No element, but related to earth
- Color: Yellow
- Season: Seasonal Transition
- Shape: Square
- Type of adornments: Stone patio
The map doesn’t need to conform to the land’s geographic direction points. Instead, you coordinate the Bagua map from the entrance to your space – the gate, pergola, or any entry point that connects to your garden. The entrance must rest in the north or one of the three northern zones. Then, you can work out uniform dimensions for each aspect of life.
The Five Elements
This old practice incorporates the five elements from Taoist tradition: wood, fire, earth, water, and metal. There are a few ways to integrate these elements into your garden design. It’s not simply for aesthetic intents—the philosophy supports the concept that each element affects a different area of our lives. And we have to use the corresponding right elements to create balance in those areas and change for the better.
Feng Shui Garden Design
Water Feature
Since the flow is fundamental to this philosophy, a feng shui outdoor water feature offers cleansing vibrations to accommodate growth and prosperity.
Build a few water bodies like an artificial well, a pond, a bird bath, or a fountain around your garden to be blessed with attractive energy. If you choose a water fountain, select one with an equal water distribution on all sides. It must always flow freely, and if you see idleness, leakage, or stoppage from the water source, you must devote yourself to that area of your life. Water is best placed in the garden’s north, east or southeast corners; otherwise, it might deliver the required energy away from the meaningful life realm.
Build a few water bodies like an artificial well, a pond, a bird bath, or a fountain around your garden to be blessed with attractive energy. If you choose a water fountain, select one with an equal water distribution on all sides. It must always flow freely, and if you see idleness, leakage, or stoppage from the water source, you must devote yourself to that area of your life. Water is best placed in the garden’s north, east or southeast corners; otherwise, it might deliver the required energy away from the meaningful life realm.
Fence Or Walls
A house with the right Feng Shui must be able to store Qi and protect against the wind. Thus, a garden with a fence can intercept bad luck, defy swarming evil spirits, and make the family successful and fortunate.
The gate and the front door shall not be placed on the same straight line to stop the evil spirit from advancing to the house; after the indirect twists and turns, the evil spirit will become the optimistic one delivering good fortune to the family.
Your fences or walls must not be higher than the house as this will lead to an imbalance of energies and attract negative chi inward. And be mindful of fences or walls designed with inward or outward sharp points; this produces negative energy.
The gate and the front door shall not be placed on the same straight line to stop the evil spirit from advancing to the house; after the indirect twists and turns, the evil spirit will become the optimistic one delivering good fortune to the family.
Your fences or walls must not be higher than the house as this will lead to an imbalance of energies and attract negative chi inward. And be mindful of fences or walls designed with inward or outward sharp points; this produces negative energy.
Leisurely Paths
A garden path that parallels the counters of the land rather than changing them will seem more like an escapade than a hassle to cross. A walkway or a cobbled path that guides from the garden to the house’s front door signifies a favourable energy flow.
It’s a good idea to build an indirect path with curvy lines. This enables the qi to flow calmly and gather in the area and is typically more advantageous than a garden full of linear alleys and sharp corners.
The last entry to your home must be neat and free from mess because the energy has to flow in without any deterrent. You can also place string lights along the pathway’s border so it will be well-lighted at night.
It’s a good idea to build an indirect path with curvy lines. This enables the qi to flow calmly and gather in the area and is typically more advantageous than a garden full of linear alleys and sharp corners.
The last entry to your home must be neat and free from mess because the energy has to flow in without any deterrent. You can also place string lights along the pathway’s border so it will be well-lighted at night.
Bring Sound
Creating soothing sounds makes a space feel more balanced from a sensory perspective and can also significantly impact the chi, helping it flow throughout a space. The sound of murmuring water and wind chimes are examples of sound energy.
Statues
Statues in your Feng Shui garden can serve as important reminders of the protection and luck of nature. Sculptures with spiritual symbols attract positive energy to the garden. It is ideal to have a full-bodied statue instead of just the head, and their size must be relative to the garden.
If you opt for a buddha statue, place it facing your house, ideally the back door, to lead bright chi energy into your home.
If you opt for a buddha statue, place it facing your house, ideally the back door, to lead bright chi energy into your home.
A Place To Rest
Having a place to rest in your garden is a fantastic Feng Shui way to equalize all your energies. It also enables you to visit your garden for a rejuvenating connection with nature and others.
You must choose furniture in pairs or seats for at least two people, especially for the Southwest zone. You can also include Feng Shui garden plants in these areas to fetch healing energy.
You must choose furniture in pairs or seats for at least two people, especially for the Southwest zone. You can also include Feng Shui garden plants in these areas to fetch healing energy.
Feng Shui Garden Plants According To Elements
- Fire Element – In general, plants with red bark and leaves or those with triangular or conical foliage represent the element fire. The famous and most captivating example of this is a Japanese Maple tree. Geraniums, red camellia, and holly bushes are other excellent fire plants.
- Water Element – Water plants are likely to radiate darker blue or purple colours, or they are plants that grow in water, like the Lotus. Here are other examples: sweet potato vine, lily, taro, iris, Heuchera, and Snake’s beard plant.
- Metal element – To introduce the metal element to your garden, you can use white flowers and round or oval leaves such as a dogwood tree, white hydrangeas, many species of hostas, gardenias, white mums, and jasmine. These plants might also display light brown colours, like the trace of tan lines on hosta leaves.
- Earth element – Plants with yellow flowers with similar colours or of earthy shades and those with square-shaped leaves symbolize the Earth element in the Feng Shui garden. Some of these plants are Ginkgo biloba, river birch, rhododendron, Japanese laurel, and Rudbeckia fulgida. Different varieties of grasses offer a special connection to the element of the earth, like miscanthus.
- Wood element – Plants with long thin stems and lush greenery, like Japanese bamboo, best represent the wood element in the Feng-shui garden. Palms and pine, common lungwort, and other conifers are also leading bearers of wood energy. Herbs like thyme, rosemary, and basil must be grown in zones of the wood element.
We hope this article details what you should know to adopt Feng Shui in your garden. When you integrate this Chinese practice, you can be confident that the garden will be captivating, soothing, balanced, and full of chi flowing smoothly around it.
An outdoor living space of harmony and peace will uplift your spirit and drive and remind you of the blessings of nature in our lives.
An outdoor living space of harmony and peace will uplift your spirit and drive and remind you of the blessings of nature in our lives.
Colin Macmillan is a seasoned entrepreneur and the CEO of Riverwood Landscape, a leading landscaping company based in Canada. He has been at the helm of the company since leaving high school, demonstrating his strong leadership skills and business acumen.
Colin’s expertise lies in various aspects of landscaping, including lawn care, interlocking, sod installation, and commercial maintenance. His hands-on approach and dedication to the craft have been instrumental in building Riverwood Landscape into a reputable brand.
One of his most notable achievements is the creation of a successful landscape franchise that services multiple locations. This accomplishment underscores his strategic thinking and ability to scale operations effectively.
Colin has also had the privilege of working with Guelph Hospital for landscaping and maintenance, a testament to the trust and reliability that his company has earned over the years.
His professional mission is to offer the best services and experiences for customers, a goal that he tirelessly pursues. Colin’s commitment to excellence and customer satisfaction continues to drive the growth and success of Riverwood Landscape.
