As news broke that this year’s flower shows have been cancelled, I found myself gazing at a pile of dry, leafy debris, cleaned from my hens and chicks, wondering whether making a mandala would sooth my mind. It wasn’t the best of ingredients, being a uniformly dull beige.
My thoughts turned to last year’s RHS Chatsworth Flower Show. The Mandala Mindfulness Garden had been designed as a quiet space to allow an urban school to provide wellbeing sessions for small groups and in one to ones. A sense of rest (from the seating areas) and calm contemplation (the mandalas), was balanced by flow (the airy planting and the oval path).
In support of the more general aim, to introduce more children to gardening, the garden was relocated to a school after the show.
The garden takes its name from two permanent mandalas in the seating areas, one made from pebbles, the other sempervivums, both placed where people can sit and contemplate them.
Temporary mandalas included a pine cone mandala round the base of a tree and space was provided for kids to make mandalas from pebbles, stones, shells, etc.
I loved the shou sugi ban (carbonised timber) fence along two sides of the garden and spent some time inspecting it, front and back. Its spiky, gappy, meandering outline were a far cry from the boxed lines of a standard fence, each plank a painting of pattern and texture.
The garden was designed to be low maintenance, as far as flower gardens go, with slender borders, naturalistic planting and uncut grass for the feet, so no need to mow. Leafy shade will eventually be provided by three multi-stemmed silver birch trees.
Some of the materials used in the garden were reclaimed, such as the oak seating surround. Triangular cushions scattered around the mandala making area had been made from recycled sailcloth.
There were some signs of the plants flowering a little behind where the designers might have have hoped – the Verbascum, Achillea, Crocosmia, Veronicastrum and tall Allium, for example. It is so hard to work with the vagaries of our weather and get everything at the peak of flower for one specific week. Let’s hope this meant the garden was still looking lovely when relocated to its new home.
Highlights from the official plant list
Flowering plants:
Alchemilla mollis
Aqueligia vulgaris ‘Alba’
Campanula lactiflora ‘Alba’
Campanula lactiflora ‘Loddon Anna’
Campanula persicifolia
Echium pininana
Erigeron karvinskianus
Geranium ‘Orion’
Ipomea ‘Star of Yalta’
Knautia macedonica
Nepeta racemosa ‘Walter’s Low’
Oenothera odorata ‘Sulphurea’
Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’
Scabiosa columbaria
Sempervivum
Stachys byzantina ‘Silver Carpet’
Stipa gigantica
Verbascum blattaria albiflorum
Veronicastrum virg. ‘Lavendelturm’
Trees:
Betula utilis var. Jacquemontii (multi-stemmed silver birch)
Grasses:
Daisy turf
Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’
Stipa gigantica
Credits
Designed by: HeldQuin Design Partnership
Built by: Patios, Pots & Pergolas
Supported by: Mindfulness In Schools Project (MiSP) who champion mental health and wellbeing. They’re currently hosting daily Sit Together sessions online.
Community links
I follow several people on WordPress who sometimes share mandalas made from flowers, including Wild Daffodil.
I’m linking to HeyJude’s 2020 Photo Challenge as her assignment this week is:
Try to mix your texture with other colours and patterns.
Most gardens overspill with contrasts – this one has the mandalas, the fence, the flooring material and the plants. I enjoy taking part in community challenges and am particularly grateful to their hosts just now.
Susan Rushton 
This is a first for me. I’ve never heard of a mandela garden, and this one is lovely. I too love that fencing of wooden poles. It provides a natural look that enhances the garden. Very pretty.
My gardening skills are pretty basic, so I appreciate the skill and creativity that went into this one.
… mandala! It should say mandala!!
Half the time it is our spell check that silently alters things while our eyes are otherwise engaged. It has a special suspicion of plant names, assuming we mean anything but what we do mean. We ought to be able to enable verbal commands like we might give a dog that is jumping with joy, so we can tell it ‘Down! Down!’
hahahaha!!! Spell check is both a blessing and a curse, but the idea of telling it to back off makes me smile 🙂
It’s interesting to see what can be made of a relatively small space and how much adding an oval breaks things up. The fence is a minor work of art.
The only mandala I’ve ever seen was in British Columbia, I think. I like the little hideaway retreats.
At first glance, mandalas seem to be ideal for hens and chicks, but if they are anything like the one I have, within a few years it would be a tangle.
This is really beautiful, I love it 😊
Mindfulness adds the spice back into life!
Well done, thanks for sharing! 😄
My pleasure, Brandon.
Oh I have to have a mandala made of succulents now!
They’re particularly suited for it (sorry for the very late reply!)
This garden is so pretty and well designed. How lovely to sit in a garden with Mandalas.
And to be able to make your own, too. 🙂