The Heirloom Garden Blog

by Graig Mckenzie

“The Ancient Art of Place­ment” called Feng Shui (pro­nounced phung schway) lit­er­ally means ‘wind’ and ‘water.’ The Chi­nese believe this cos­mic energy, called Chi or ‘the green dragon’s cos­mic breath,’ is the life force energy that per­vades human exis­tence. The basic tenet of Feng Shui is to cap­ture this vital energy cre­at­ing bal­ance and har­mony in our envi­ron­ments. Feng Shui is pred­i­cated on the core belief that we, the earth, and every liv­ing thing on it are interconnected.

Feng Shui is the old­est form of gar­den­ing dat­ing back sev­eral mil­len­nia to China. It is based on the phi­los­o­phy that man and nature must live in har­mony with one another and that all life is infused with the invis­i­ble energy called Chi. This force cir­cu­lates through­out our envi­ron­ment and is essen­tial to our well-being, health, and hap­pi­ness. The Chi­nese sages believed that any man-made fea­ture could affect the flow of Chi so estab­lished the rules of place­ment that are cen­tral to this philosophy.

In the Feng Shui gar­den, bal­ance and har­mony are the key fac­tors. Bal­ance and har­mony are achieved by care­ful atten­tion to detail and the bal­ance of Yin and Yang energy. Yin energy includes the earth, rocks, ponds, plants, flow­ers, and trees. Yang energy includes the home, brick, wood, nails, and other solid con­struc­tion. The fun­da­men­tal char­ac­ter­is­tics of Feng Shui gar­den­ing are:

· Curved lines rather than straight allow nat­ural energy to flow more easily.

· Feng Shui gar­dens are never crowded.

· Feng Shui gar­dens are designed to look as nat­ural as possible.

· Mix­ing shapes and sizes is a vital ele­ment in Feng Shui gardens.

The Chi, or cos­mic energy, needs to flow freely and smoothly through its sur­round­ings in order to cre­ate har­mony and bal­ance in the gar­den. Yin and Yang together con­sti­tute the two forms of energy cen­tral to the con­cept of Feng Shui prin­ci­ples and define the qual­ity of the ener­gies in any space.

Yin energy con­sti­tutes the fem­i­nine energy and its ele­ments are shad­ows, dark­ness, win­ter, night-time, wet, soft, recep­tive, pas­sive, neg­a­tive, inner, north, cre­ation, earth, and is sym­bol­ized by the moon. Yang energy con­sti­tutes the mas­cu­line energy and its ele­ments are light, open­ness, vigour, growth, sum­mer, day­time, spirit, dry, hard, active, pos­i­tive, sky, heaven, south, outer, ener­getic, and is sym­bol­ized by the sun. Yin and Yang ener­gies are com­ple­men­tary to each other.

The Feng Shui of your house influ­ences your life from a per­sonal point of view. The Feng Shui of your gar­den influ­ences the outer aspect of your house and influ­ences the more pub­lic view of your life. The front gar­den is more Yang while the back gar­den is more Yin and the pri­vate side of your life. The best way to exam­ine the Feng Shui of your gar­den is to treat your entire prop­erty as a sin­gle unit.

Plants that exhibit Yang energy include large-leafed plants that cre­ate a pow­er­ful pres­ence and cre­ate good Feng Shui when placed beside water fea­tures such as a pond or foun­tain. These plants con­trast nicely with feath­ery foliage plants such as ferns. Plants that exhibit Yin energy include ferns that help to dis­solve any neg­a­tive energy in the gar­den. Hang­ing plants will lift energy or allow energy to flow. It is a good idea to hang bas­kets around areas where you like to social­ize. Win­dow boxes encour­age ben­e­fi­cial Chi toward the home.

About the Author

Read about celosia plumosa and celosia plant at the Celosia Flower website.

——————————————–

Thanks for Vis­it­ing The Heir­loom Gar­den Blog
Stop by and check out our afford­able heir­loom seeds,
our free gar­den down­loads, and other arti­cles at the:

Penn­syl­va­nia Heir­loom Seed Savers Club