These days, everyone laments the loss of privacy in our lives. But we seem to have forgotten an old but still powerful tool for rebuilding it: the creation of secret gardens.
These are hidden places – clandestine squares of emerald and purple, oracles of startling yellow and red, tucked into the thick of the urban sprawl.
Ideally, they are invisible – and inaccessible – to all but those whose back doors open onto its deep, cozy green glory.
Creating Your Own Secret Garden
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Of course, secret gardens can also be communal. Here you can have children’s birthday parties, cocktail parties, egg hunts, trick-or-treating, or visits from Santa.
For children, a secret garden can be a safe private playground. For parents, it could be a godsend. For harried professionals, secret gardens can provide a quiet sanctuary at the end of a long day.
Secret gardens work a certain kind of magic on people. You can create your own unique magic, too, right in your backyard – with a little effort and imagination.
You don’t have to spend too much. You can start with what you already have.
Below are a few tips on creating your very own secret garden.
1. Choose a spot.
Pick a secluded planting spot. If you have a corner that already feels like an enclosure, then that is your best choice. If you don’t, look around to see if you have a group or row of trees or shrubs that could give you a sense of being in a special place.
Walls and fences, even if they’re off to one side, will also work; and so, too, will an arbor draped with vines. You can even set off a spot with a couple of trellises or sections of wooden fencing.
2. Create an entryway
One of the main elements of a secret garden is a well-defined entryway, usually with an arbor and a gate leading into them. The arbor creates an entrance that “looks and feels special,” says Wanda Simone for From House to Home.
You might also give your entryway seasonal updates with bulbs in spring, annuals in summer, mums in fall, and evergreens for winter. Containers can be moved around to alter the entryway’s look.
3. Create a destination.
Don’t forget to put a centerpiece and a comfortable chair or bench, so you can sit and spend time in your little green sanctuary. This will be your garden’s destination spot.
Whether it’s a beautiful table for lunch or simply a fixture on which you can put your feet up, providing a pretty and relaxing destination spot is a must.
4. Provide shade.
If you are lucky enough to have trees to provide shade for your seating area, you are ahead of the game. But if not, try to provide some shade to keep your space cool and comfortable.
You don’t want the hot afternoon sun beating down on you all afternoon.
5. Choose your plants.
Grow some plants for fragrance. The more enclosed your secret garden, the more you’ll enjoy their sweet perfumes, says Lynn Coulter for HGTV.
Mignonettes, lilacs, hyacinths, dianthus, sweet peas, lily of the valley, gardenias, nicotiana, lavender, magnolias, and heliotropes have fragrant perfumes.
Oriental lilies and many petunias smell hauntingly sweet after dark.
6. Invite birds and pollinators.
Entice hummingbirds with red salvia, coral vine, trumpet honeysuckle, columbines, fuchsias, and bee balm. Install a birdbath or a shallow pond so wildlife can drink and bathe.
Plant shrubs, vines, and flowers for birds. Give them a place to build nests and raise their young. Add a flowering fruit tree or shrub.
Bayberries, dogwood, cherries, and crabapples offer food for cardinals, mockingbirds, and other kinds of wildlife, as well.
Your Own Urban Paradise
The language we superimpose on gardens, flowers, and plants is something we all understand – not because it represents something tangible, but because it is an important part of our well-being.
Urban living can – at times – lapse into a dull, grey, unhealthy monotony. Those of us who have lived in cities long enough knows this. But a secret urban paradise is surprisingly feasible. All that is required is a modest and relatively simple effort.
Have you already created your own secret garden? We’d love to hear about your experiences.
