Ideas for an Urban Sanctuary

A simple vase can draw attention away from the outside world.

If you’re blessed with a garden but live in a city, you may face several challenges: tall buildings casting shade, street noise day or night, a neighbor’s odd taste in paint colors. For instance, I’ll never forget the day workers installed a bright blue roof on my neighbor’s garage. Its giant, garish panel loomed over the soft greenery of my shrubs along the fence.

So how can we solve these annoying headaches? The answer is to use structure and plants to screen and shift our focus as best we can. Here are a few strategies:

1. Creating a Sanctuary Screen

Every retreat needs boundaries. A fence, wall, or even hedge marks where the noisy outside world ends and your sanctuary begins. When you step through it, your mind registers you as transitioning from chaos to a peaceful place. What’s more, those barriers go a long way in hiding a junky car or garbage bin.

But what if your eyesore is a cell tower or neighbor’s deck or even a blue roof? Here, a row of small, narrow trees like columnar hornbeam or slender Taylor junipers hide the unwanted views. Even vase-like shrubs like a Dawn viburnum or witch hazel grow tall enough to do the trick without overwhelming a smaller garden space.

2. Drawing the Eye Away

Sometimes you can’t avoid seeing a six-story apartment complex in the distance. But when you spend time in the garden, you don’t have to look at it. A strategically placed obelisk, birdbath, or statuary draws the eye elsewhere. Plus, if you’re able to partially hide your focal point amidst greenery and install a path toward it, you create a journey, which in turn creates intrigue.

Also, a strategically placed bench or Adirondack chair will remind you to sit and take in a desirable vista. You can face a simple perennial border of coneflowers and verbena, small tree of interest like a redbud, or even containers of petunias on your patio. Just create a pleasant feature, even one with a sweet scent like a jasmine or rose, you can enjoy.

3. Masking Noise with Soothing Sound

If you hear the constant swish of a highway or occasional street traffic from your garden, try creating an alternative, more peaceful sound to attract your sonic attention. The constant trickle of a fountain near a patio or gentle music of a wind chime can feel soothing and relax the mind. I even recommend investing in an inexpensive outdoor speaker and playing light classical music.

Lastly, certain plants can create their own kinds of musical sounds. Tall grasses like fountain grass give off a hushing sound when the breeze blows. Birch tree leaves flutter in the wind, emitting a cheery patter.

If you’ve found solutions for your urban sanctuary, please share them with me in the comments.