Plant Ideas for a Sensory Garden-Sound

Sawtooth oak (Quercus acutissima)

Glossy, lance-shaped leaves rustle in the wind, and the cup-enclosed nuts "pop" in the spring. there is no food more widely used by wildlife than acorns.  Many people are interested in producing more acorns on their property but do not want to wait the 25 to 30 years it usually takes native oak trees to start producing acorns. There is a species of oak that begins production much sooner. Sawtooth oak (Quercus accitimus) is a tree native to Asia that is widely adapted to the southeast United States. Sawtooth oaks grow fast and routinely produce first crops of acorns in the fifth or sixth growing season. The acorns are large like those from our white oaks and are dropped in September and October. Sawtooth oak trees will reach a height of 50 to 70 feet. They are sometimes used as a fast growing ornamental shade tree in yards.


Narrow-leaved cattail (Typha angustifolia)

The linear leaves of this aquatic perennial whisper in the breeze. Its fuzzy brown flower spikes bloom in midsummer. An erect aquatic freshwater perennial in the cat-tail family (Typhaceae) growing 3 to 6 feet tall. long linear leaves emerge in spring. Leaves are 2 to 5 feet long, very narrow, and flattened. Flowers mature in mid summer and are comprised of velvety brown, cigar-shaped spikes 2 to 6 inches long with a gap between the male and female flowers (common cattail Typha latifolia has no gap). The male flowers are produced above the female spike, which forms a thick brown dense mass, later breaking up and allowing the fruits to disperse by wind. One plant can produce approximately 250,000 soft downy seeds in the fall. Seeds can remain viable in the seed-bank for up to 100 years. It reproduces by seeds and by thick, rapidly spreading, lateral rhizomes.


Grasses
Rattle Snake Grass
Greater quaking grass, Briza maxima
Bamboos
Bamboo Phyllostachys ( whispering sound)
Animated Oats
Love in the Mist ( rattling seed heads)

Miscanthus oligostachyus 'Nanus Variegatus'( bamboo-like foliage that is noisy)
Canterbury bell (Campanula medium) attracts lost of buzzing bees
Listen for the sound of the wind in the garden plants
listen out for the dawn chorus of the wild birds in a garden ( you need to get up at dawn)
encourage birds to hear their bird song
build birdfeeders and bird baths a moving water feature
wind chimes
encourage kids to build things that make a sound ( twigs, pebbles on a string, seashell finds)