Creating a Garden for the Senses

Here Cox ( Plant Marriages ) considers ``both the sensuous and sensual aspects of plants,'' hoping to ``bring . . . unconscious sensory experiences into the bright light of full consciousness.'' Lest this sound too Freudian, what he really wants to do is to simplify, not to complicate, a gardener's pleasure, returning us to a child-like state of harmony with nature. Reasonably, the book is divided into chapters that address each sense (sight, smell, touch, sound, taste) in turn, before finally taking on ``the sixth sense,'' meaning one that ``perceives a reality beyond the material world'' of plants. Under ``Sound,'' for instance, Cox discusses wind chimes and piped-in music for garden settings, as well as the music donated by nature. Under ``Scent,'' herbs receive a good deal of attention, and color, of course, looms large in ``Sight.'' And, continually encouraging the development or the reawakening of an ``aesthetic sense,'' the book prods gently with color photos. But, like his previous Plant Marriages , Cox offers more gimmick than genius, and quite a few commonplaces mixed in. ``A strong and trusted intuition is a particularly great help in gardening,'' he notes, and, ``sitting in a garden, it is not hard to believe that we and the plants are part of a greater whole.'' People have been saying this for centuries. (Nov.)