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Garden Senses

Learn About Garden Senses

By using our five senses in the garden, we can enjoy the wonders of nature and experience the magic of living things. With our eyes, we see flowers in different colours and shapes. With our ears we can hear birds chirping and bees. With our sense of taste, we can enjoy the sweetness of fruits or the freshness of herbs we grow. Through touch, we can feel the textures of leaves, the softness of petals, and the roughness of tree barks. And with our noses we can enjoy the lovely smell of flowers or the earthy smell of soil. Let’s discover more about our senses and how we can use them to explore our gardens! 

Seeing

The sense of sight is amazing! It helps us see the world around us and all the beautiful things in it. Our eyes are like little cameras that take pictures and send them to our brain, so we can understand what we're looking at 

In our gardens, there are so many colours waiting to be discovered, and as the seasons change, the colours transform too. These are some of the different colours we can see in each season: 

Garden Senses
  • Spring

    Pink cherry blossoms, yellow daffodils, purple and blue bluebells 

  • Summer

    Red roses, orange marigolds, bright green lawns 

  • Autumn

    Warm earthy tones in changing leaves, brown acorns and conkers 

  • Winter

    White snow, evergreen trees, bright red robins 

But colours aren't the only wonders in the garden! There are fascinating shapes and patterns all around us too 

 

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These are some of the shapes and patterns we can look for: 

  • Leaves of all different shapes and sizes

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  • Patterned leaves 

  • Delicate flower petals

  • Spider webs

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  • Spots on lady bugs 

  • Swirly snail shells

Hearing

The sense of hearing is a wonderful gift that allows us to listen and enjoy all the sounds around us – especially in our gardens! 

Ears have a special part called the ear drum that vibrates when sounds enter our ears. The vibrations from this drum travel through the tiny bones in our ears, and then they reach a special part of our brain that helps us understand what we are hearing 

To make the most of this amazing ability, there are special ways we can notice more sounds around us when we’re out in nature: 

Garden Senses

  1. Find a quiet spot in your garden or park, away from noisy distractions 

  2. Close your eyes 

  3. Relax and tune in to your hearing sense 

  4. Focus on the natural sounds around you and try to identify different sounds. Can you hear the chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves, or the buzz of insects?

Taste

Our sense of taste is like having a special superpower for our tongue! It helps us enjoy the yummy flavours of different foods 

Our taste buds are tiny little parts of our tongue that allow us to taste different flavours – like things that are salty, sweet, sour or bitter 

Often, our gardens are full of tasty things to enjoy. Here are some of the ways we can explore our gardens using our sense of taste: 

Garden Senses

  • We can pick a fresh, juicy apple from a tree and taste the sweetness 

  • We can nibble on a leaf of mint and enjoy the cool, refreshing flavour 

  • We can pluck a strawberry and enjoy the fruity flavour 

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  • We can even try some tangy tomatoes or crunchy cucumbers from the greenhouse 

Remember, it's important to ask a grown-up before tasting something from the garden, just to make sure it's safe and ready to eat 

Touch 

The sense of touch is like having tiny little sensors all over our skin that help us feel things. So when we touch something, like a soft pillow or a rough tree bark, we can notice different textures and temperatures 

There are lots of ways we can explore our gardens and green spaces using our sense of touch: 

Garden Senses

  • We can feel the soft petals of a flower, like a velvety rose or a silky tulip

  • We can run our fingers along the smooth surface of a leaf or the rough bark of a tree 

  • We can dip our hands into the soil and feel its coolness and how it crumbles between our fingers

  • We can gently touch a caterpillar crawling on a leaf and feel its little legs tickling our skin 

Remember, it's important to be gentle and careful when touching things in the garden. Always ask a grown-up before touching anything in the garden

Smell

The sense of smell is like having a magical power in our nose! It helps us pick up different scents and enjoy all the wonderful smells around us 

Inside our noses there are lots of tiny detectors that send messages to our brain and help us understand what we smell 

There are plenty of things to smell out and about in our gardens:  

Garden Senses

  • We can take a big sniff of a beautiful flower and smell its sweet and fragrant aroma

  • We can walk near a rose bush and breathe in its lovely perfume 

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  • We can find herbs like mint, lavender or rosemary and take a sniff of their refreshing scents 

  • We might even come across the delicious smell of ripe fruits like strawberries or oranges