Renovating your backyard and turning it into your safe sanctuary can be a great project during this pandemic. A Zen garden can be a calming and peaceful alternative to a backyard garden, vegetable patch, and swimming pool, among others.
If you want a more serene design for your backyard, you can add plants and a pond to it. Designing your Zen garden can be a great way to find peace within yourself and soothe your soul with a relaxing result of your backyard project.
There are many ways to renovate your backyard Zen-style. Adding stones, circles, plants, and ponds might not be enough. Knowing what these represent can give you a clearer understanding of what a Zen garden should look and feel like.
However, to achieve a Zen garden, it must be free from clutter and unnecessary objects. Put away all equipment and things you think are not suitable for the theme in a storage shed. This will enable you to achieve a more Zen vibe.
Here are ways you can create a Zen garden:
- Rocks and Stones Are Your New Best Friend
Having a Zen-inspired backyard can be soothing and calming for the body and the soul. Different rocks and stones placed in your Zen garden can represent things. Vertical stones or upright stones represent trees. Horizontal or flat stones represent water, while arching stones represent life. When these three are combined, you show a balance in nature. The upright stone represents land and its relationship with the water or the flat stone. When the flat stone touches the arching stone, it creates air—the flat stone is water, and the arching stone is fire. The combination of the three means life.
- Add Moss to Your Backyard
Moss is an essential plant in a Zen-style garden. It grows where some plants and flowers cannot thrive. This could mean your ability to survive despite hardships in your life. This may also remind you that life is full of challenges, but you need to thrive in whatever environment you have as human beings.
- Create a Sandbox
A sandbox in a Zen-style garden does not look like the regular kid’s sandbox that you have seen in playgrounds. Sand is essential in Zen as it adds to the beauty of the garden. It mainly represents water, and the ripples that you create on it represent the waves. Some garden owners leave a rake or a hoe in their sand area so that they can constantly change the “ripples” of their sand. This shows that you can adapt to changes brought by your environment.
- Plants Add Beauty and Serenity to Your Garden
Having a garden with lots of plants can be soothing to the eyes, but styling your plants and make some stand out can bring calm into your soul too. Plants are also essential in a Zen-style garden because it is a stylized dry landscape in your backyard. You create your landscape when making a Zen-style garden.
- Create a Path in Your Backyard
Having a path in your Zen-style garden allows you to traverse in a peaceful area in your backyard. This will also allow you to frequently check your plants and the other elements you added to your Zen garden. This may mean that you are ready to take on any path that opens up in front of you in your life.
- Add Water Features
You can add some water features to your Zen garden to create a completely tranquil experience in your backyard. A water feature will add tranquility to your garden since water represents serenity and tranquility in Zen. Water symbolizes fluidity in Zen, and this will make everything at ease and peaceful. You will get harmony with all the elements in a Zen-style garden.
- Add Some Bamboo
Bamboo is an essential element in a Zen garden because it originated in Japan, and bamboo is common in Japanese gardens. Apart from being prevalent, bamboo is a sturdy tree that sways with the wind. This adds to the flexibility of your garden—a place where you keep your plants and an area of serenity in your home.
- Add Plant Pillars
Plant pillars elevate your plants from the ground. You give them some pedestal to highlight such plants in your backyard. This is an incredible transformation from the usual garden where most plants are on the ground reaching to skies. This time, your backyard has variations where some plants remain on the ground while others are planted on pillars at varying heights.
- Add Japanese Lanterns
Japanese lanterns will replace your lighting equipment in the backyard. These lights will add to the aesthetics and ambiance of your backyard, making your garden look and feel peaceful even at night. You can relax your body and soothe your soul while staying in your Zen garden at night.
- Place Benches or Concrete Stools
To complete that Zen feeling in your backyard, you can add a bench underneath a tree in your garden. Make sure that your bench is in an area where you can stay even in daylight. Find a shady spot in your backyard where you can build a bench and a small table so that you can enjoy a cup of tea while relaxing in your Zen garden.
Your Zen garden will indeed create a different atmosphere compared to your old backyard. This will surely give you the peace and tranquility that every Zen garden gives. Apart from peace and tranquility, the beauty that a Zen garden gives will surely calm and soothe your body and soul as you take a relaxing afternoon in your backyard.
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