Patio gardens and terraces

Small backyards of the houses of city-dwellers will, if neglected, always attract and accumulateYin energy. Avoid this if you can by creating a patio or terrace garden from such spaces. Feng Shui is most accommodating: no space is too small for it.

Try to think of a patio as an inner courtyard, an extension to the house but open to the elements. A small water feature such as a fountain or a pool surrounded by plants will attract Sheng Chi into the home. As we have also seen earlier, decorative features such as small pergolas, trellises and hanging baskets are all good for gardens and can also be introduced into patios, so long as they are in proportion, to auspicious effect. Add interest to the ground plan of your patio by perhaps adding a small paved area with decorative stones. In placing them, always be guided by theelements that are represented by the compass location of your patio garden. For example, the best locations for stones or pebbles are the southwest or northeast, since the ruling element is earth.

Patio gardens are often seen as extensions of the house itself and they often provide excellent Feng Shui by correcting the problem of missing corners in L-shaped or U- shaped houses. If you have a wall that acts as a backdrop to your patio or terrace, try to resist the temptation to swathe it in creepers or vines. Doing this will sap the strength of the wall and have a negative effect on your Feng Shui. Better to introduce hanging baskets or potted plants. If your patio is at the back of the house, you could build a small rockery in simulation of the protective turtle mountain.

A rather nice effect — and one always popular with the Chinese — is the placing of large, empty ceramic pots in patio gardens. Often decorated with symbols of good fortune, their role is to encourage Chi to enter, settle, and accumulate in the area. They are kept empty so that they can capture and store bad Chi.

Sloping gardens

A sloping garden offers creative opportunities for professional garden designers but, from our point of view, offers wonderful opportunities for creative and auspicious Feng Shui. Feng Shui has guidelines for making the most of such a site and they revolve around engaging the tiger/dragon and protective turtle symbolism.

Levels in a sloping garden are an important consideration and such a garden can be broken into a number of levels. In a small garden the choice is naturally limited. In a bigger garden, however, firmer guidelines can be applied. Further away from the house allow the land to slope naturally; closer to the house sloping land should be more formal and contrived, perhaps with artificially created terraces or levels defining high and low ground.

The overall effect of these different levels should always be one of stability: a terrace must appear to be firmly rooted to the ground, and indeed it should be. If you have a retaining wall ensure it is solid and well built so as to afford the stability so essential to your property and to the good Feng Shui of the garden and house. A firm foundation is fundamental to good Feng Shui.

Allow your garden terrace to slope and curve in order to encourage good Feng Shui. Introduce color and variety into your terrace planting. Introducing evergreens between the different levels of the terrace will encourage good-fortune Chi to flow throughout the year, and notsimply during the times of year when annuals or perennials thrive.

Grassy banks

A grassy bank is often quite difficult to maintain and can frequently become a bit ragged and neglected. If this is the case, such slopes might be better planted rather than turfed, particularly if they are at the back of the house. The back represents your flank and it must be protectedeither by higher ground or a clump of trees. Neglect this ground and you neglect the Feng Shui, which will be affected accordingly.

Steps

With regard to closely spaced steps in a garden, there are golden rules which must be observed:

• Curved steps are better than straight steps and they must not be too steep or too narrow.
• Steps must not be visible from the main gate, start directly in front of the main gate or be directlyfacing the main door.
• Steps must not be directly in line with the back door. Keep garden steps to the side of the house.
• Garden steps should be as wide and spacious as possible andpreferably circular.

Rock gardens

For easy maintenance, rock gardens are best placed on level rather than sloping ground. Rocks asdecorative items are most suited to the southwest part of the garden, which is the big earth corner.

If, however, you want to plantyour rock garden, you can make the slope work for you by beddingrocks into it — so that they resemble a natural outcrop — and creating pathways around the rocks for easy access to plants and shrubs. If youdo this, you must ensure that the looks you select are rounded andnot threatening in any way. So closeto your house, they should not resemble anything remotely fierce or hostile. This will attract nothing but bad luck to members of your household: illness and financial loss will almost certainly follow. It is, however, excellent Feng Shui to place good-fortune symbols — a statue of a crane, the symbol of longevity, for example — in the middle of your rock garden.

Barbecues

Inviting friends around for a barbecue continues to be a popular social event all over the world. Any outdoor living space can be enhanced with a bricked barbecue area, but there are rules which must be observed. Make sure that you do not place your barbecue too close to doors or windows: this will discourage beneficial Chi from entering the house.

More important, however, is to ensure that your barbecue is placed in the correct corner of the garden. The south, southwest, and northeast are suitable:

• The south is the fire sector and a barbecue suits the fire element.
• The southwest and northeast are earth corners — remember earth produces fire in the productive cycle of the five elements.

There are also locations you should stringently avoid:

• The west and northwest are metal corners. Fire always destroys metal in the destructive cycle of the five elements.
• The northwest is the sector of the family breadwinner. It is called the gate of heaven since the trigram for this corner is Chien, which represents heaven. A naked flame associated with something like a barbecue in this corner suggests a destructive force rather than positive Yang energy: it symbolically suggests that you are setting light to heaven and burning the fortunes of the household.

If you cannot build your barbecue in a suitable sector, better to do without altogether and use a mobile barbecue which you can store away after use.

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