You can easily create a garden that will dazzle all the senses. Imagine it - a beautiful place filled with colorful flowers for your eyes to see; sweet fragrances for your nose to smell, soft leaves for your fingers to caress; luscious fruits to delight your tastebuds. Yet, did you even consider sound in that garden - or just the sound of silence? Generally a garden is a tranquil place, but not silent.

Leaves have various sound qualities in different seasons. In summer, you can tell when it is going to storm because you can see the whites (undersides) of the leaves on many trees. You also hear the leaves of the trees rustling in the gathering wind, as they blow around to show you their undersides. The crackling rustle of dry leaves in an autumn wind has a sharper tone. Once the leaves fall to the ground, you rake them into big piles. Remember the sounds you made and heard as a child, running and jumping into the leaf piles?

Perhaps the most quiet time in the garden is in winter, just after a snow. The air is still, the plants are covered with a thick, sound-absorbing layer of white powder, not a creature is stirring. As the sun warms the snow, you start to hear the plop of clumps of snow dropping from tree branches onto the moist, snow-laden ground below.

Spring returns to the garden, and you can almost hear the plants growing, pushing themselves out of the thawing earth. Listen to the return of birds to the garden. Their songs gently awaken you in the morning and serenade you in the evening. Tree frog eggs hatch and you hear the sounds coming from your pond or wet woodland of hundreds of peepers in the spring night.

In summer the garden is abuzz with the sound of bees collecting pollen from the flowers. Hummingbirds make a soft whirring sound as they flit from flower to flower drinking up nectar. I have often been out in my garden at night and heard the gentle whir of a sphinx moth, gathering nectar while pollinating my night-blooming plants. Summer also brings the sometimes gentle, sometimes thunderous, sound of rain.

Make a quiet space for yourself in your garden where you can sit, undisturbed, and enjoy all the special sounds in your garden. You will come to recognize the hoots of the owls at night, the mournful cooing of doves in the evening, and the sounds of whatever other birds and wildlife are indigenous to your area. Catch the sound of the wind, and enjoy the solace—if the surrounding gardeners are not making too much noise.