How to Feng Shui Your Garden

When it comes to creating good feng shui for the home, most of its practitioners agree that manipulating the surroundings of the house is far more decisive than whatever is done inside.
In last month’s article, I shared strategies on designing an outdoor living space for your home, based on aesthetic appreciation. Today’s article will focus on designing to achieve a sense of balance and harmony.

Take a look at your existing garden. Do you like what you see? Most Malaysians will answer no.
You don’t need to be a feng shui expert to know that a lush and beautiful garden with the right amount of sunlight and shade contributes greatly to your happiness and peace of mind, while a dull or overgrown garden, or even a cemented-over garden has the opposite effect.

There are three rules-of-thumb to follow when designing a garden:

• Make sure the environment is safe
• Block out ugly sights and enhance pleasant scenery, and
• Cultivate a balance in design.

You can call it good feng shui practice, but think of it as simply designing to achieve beauty and pleasure.

Here are some common situations and how to overcome them to promote a greater “flow of energy” based on the guidelines above.

1) Eliminate sharp edges

Try not to place garden furniture with sharp corners near walk paths or doorways. You can use rounded edges or perhaps place a plant at the edge to blunt the point. However, don’t go cutting off all your table and chair edges. A square table is not bad feng shui – just don’t place the edge near where you are likely to bump into it.

2) Ensure a suitable pond size

The depth of your pond should be determined by the presence of toddlers in your family and by how large your available space is. If you have young children, it may be dangerous to have a deep, open-water surface so plan a water feature with an underground reservoir. Generally, pond sizes should be one-tenth of the surrounding area. Also, bigger fish like koi need deeper ponds.

3) Control the view

Most people probably live in suburban areas where there’s too much concrete. So for your garden, use timber lattices and lots of plants to “wall-in” your garden. You can do this to block off unpleasant sights such as a neighbour’s sharp roof angle or busy road. Conversely, if you are lucky enough to have a stunning view of green hills or a lake, enhance the sight by framing it with tall plants at the side.

4) Create a balance of elements

This is perhaps the most important, and often overlooked, aspect when applying feng shui in your garden. In fact, some practitioners are so adamant about where to place water or wood, they forget the overall picture – a perfect example of missing the forest for the trees.
A balanced garden means having enough greenery to counter the concrete of your house, enough wood to complement the greenery, enough stone or pebbles to contrast with the wood, and enough water element to create a well-rounded garden.

So good feng shui for your garden is surprisingly easy to achieve if you follow these guidelines.
If the front of your home is well designed and beautiful with enough plants and features, you will automatically feel more pleasant and inspired whenever you walk through your front door. That’s what I call sensible feng shui