How to Plant a Backyard Sanctuary

A spa or swimming pool can provide the physical foundation for health and relaxation – but the landscape surrounding it has the potential to transform that experience into something much more immersive. In this article, Rebecca Hughes from Blue Mountain Nurseries explores how thoughtfully selected plants can soften hard surfaces, create privacy, introduce calming scents and sounds, and connect people with the natural environment in their own personal sanctuary

In New Zealand, there is an opportunity to create these spaces using plants that reflect the country’s unique landscape and biodiversity. By combining native species with carefully selected ornamental plants, a garden can become more than a backdrop to a spa or pool — it can become a sensory wellness space designed to encourage calm, restoration and connection with nature.

Designing for the Senses

A successful wellness garden engages more than sight. Plants can stimulate the senses through scent, texture, movement, sound and colour, creating an environment that feels restorative before a person even enters the spa or pool.

Sight: Creating Visual Calm

Green is naturally associated with vegetation, growth and tranquillity, making foliage an important component of a relaxing garden. Rather than filling a space with lots of competing colours and forms, a wellness garden can use layers of foliage and restrained planting to create a sense of calm.

Cool greens, silvers, whites and soft blues generally support a peaceful atmosphere. These colours can be repeated through foliage, flowers, paving and furnishing to create a unified design.

New Zealand natives offer a particularly strong palette for this approach. Plants such as mānuka (Leptospermum scoparium), kānuka (Kunzea species), kōwhai (Sophora species), tī kōuka or cabbage tree (Cordyline australis), carex and rengarenga (Arthropodium cirratum) can provide a distinctly New Zealand character.

The soft, architectural form of grasses and sedges can be particularly effective around pools. Their movement in the breeze introduces subtle visual activity without creating a busy environment.

For a contemporary spa or pool setting, planting can be kept simple with a framework of evergreen foliage, repeated plant groups and occasional seasonal flowers. This creates a sense of rhythm and makes the fixed elements – the pool, spa, seating or outdoor bath – feel integrated into the landscape.

White-flowering hydrangeas, gardenias, star jasmine and compact hebes can brighten evening gardens. Silver foliage from lavender, Teucrium fruticans, Convolvulus cneorum and selected hebes can contrast beautifully with dark fences and contemporary paving.

Colour does not have to be eliminated, but strong tones can be concentrated at key focal points rather than spread throughout the garden. Deep blues, burgundy foliage or carefully placed seasonal flowers can add richness without disturbing calm.

Scent: Planting for Fragrance

Scent is one of the most powerful ways plants can influence the experience of a garden. Fragrant planting can create an immediate sense of place and become associated with relaxation and wellbeing.

New Zealand has several plants that can contribute a pleasing fragrance. Mānuka, for example, produces attractive flowers and can bring a distinctly local character to the planting palette. Lemonwood or tarata (Pittosporum eugenioides) can also contribute fragrance, particularly when leaves are crushed. Other fragrant plants to consider include Daphne, Gardenia, Star Jasmine, Magnolia and Sarcococca.

Herbs and aromatic plants can complement native planting. Lavender, rosemary, mint and lemon-scented plants can be positioned near pathways or seating, where their fragrance can be experienced at close range.

Touch: Inviting Interaction

Texture adds another layer to a sensory garden. Soft foliage, fine grasses, smooth leaves and contrasting plant forms can encourage people to slow down and notice their surroundings.

Plants such as rengarenga, harakeke (Phormium species), carex and native grasses provide a variety of textures and forms, as do Libertia, Lomandra, Stachys byzantina (Lambs Ear), Fatsia japonica and Astelia. Some can be planted alongside paths where their foliage can be observed or gently touched.

Sound: Building Textures

Sound is often not considered when designing gardens, yet it can make a significant contribution to relaxation.

Plants that move in the wind can create gentle rustling sounds, particularly grasses, sedges and flax-like foliage. These sounds can help soften noises associated with pumps, filtration systems and outdoor living. Carex testacea, Anemanthele lessoniana, Chionochloa species, Libertia and compact forms of Phormium are valuable for creating movement.

Water itself is another important sensory element. The sound of a pool, spa, fountain or small water feature can be enhanced by surrounding it with vegetation. Planting can frame the water without obscuring it, creating a layered relationship between the fixed water element and the living landscape.

Privacy: Offering an Escape

One of the most important roles plants can play around a spa or pool is creating a feeling of seclusion and enclosure.

A wellness space should feel separated from the everyday environment. Planting can achieve this without relying entirely on fences and screens.

Evergreen New Zealand plants such as Pittosporums, Griselinia, (broadleaf) and selected Coprosmas can provide screening and structure. Rather than creating a solid wall of vegetation, plants can be layered to create filtered views, allowing glimpses of the surrounding garden while maintaining privacy.

This approach can make a spa feel more like a private retreat or garden sanctuary. Planting at different heights is particularly effective:

• Low planting defines pathways and softens paving.

• Mid-height shrubs provide privacy and visual separation.

• Small trees create overhead enclosure and shade.

• Grasses and sedges add movement at ground level.

• Climbers can soften pergolas, screens and architectural structures.

  
  

The result is a space that feels enclosed without feeling confined.

Practical Considerations

Wellness planting needs to balance beauty with practicality.

Plants located immediately beside pools should ideally have limited leaf, seed and flower drop to reduce maintenance and keep debris out of the water.

Plants with thorns, irritating sap and sharp foliage should also be kept away from areas where people walk barefoot.

It’s important to consider root behaviour, irrigation requirements and exposure to wind and reflected heat.

Sun-loving plants may thrive beside a north-facing pool, while shaded corners can provide

opportunities for ferns and other shade-tolerant species.

It is also worth considering the relationship between plants and hard landscaping. Paving, decking, stone and concrete can become visually harsh when used extensively. Planting softens these surfaces and helps integrate them into the wider garden.

By combining evergreen structure, carefully placed fragrance, tactile foliage, gentle movement and a calm colour palette, landscapers can create outdoor environments that appeal to more than the eye. These spaces offer privacy without isolation, sensory interest without clutter, and seasonal change without excessive maintenance.

Ultimately, the most successful wellness garden doesn’t simply look beautiful from the outside – it changes how the space feels to be in and encourages people to pause, reconnect with their surroundings and enjoy the restorative qualities of time spent outdoors.

About the contributor

Rebecca Hughes has a Botany BSc with Honours and has been National Training Manager for the Horticulture Industry Training Organisation (ITO) and General Manager for the Community Support Services ITO. She is currently co-director of Blue Mountain Nurseries, a family-run wholesale and retail plant nursery established in Tapanui in 1932.