A Sensory Garden That'll Take Your Breath Away In California

The first sound you hear when you walk into Elizabeth Horn and Zach Nelson’s garden is the whistling chatter of finches; the second is the gurgle of water from the fountain. Then the fragrance of rosemary greets you as you descend the steps into a loose grid of flowers, foliage, and edibles. This immersive space is just what the couple wanted when they renovated their Hillsborough, California, property in 2012. “The goal was to turn it into a place of healing,” Horn says. “It’s impossible to be anything but relaxed here.”

Horn and Nelson created the 10,000-square-foot organic garden largely for their then-16-year-old daughter, Sophia, who has autism. “In my experience, eating local, clean, organic food is one of the best medicines for all children, especially those with health issues like autism,” says Horn, a filmmaker who has devoted herself to autism research for the past two decades. After installing raised beds, the couple brought in landscape designer Leslie Bennett, owner of Oakland-based Pine House Edible Gardens, to revitalize the soil with organic matter and plant an abundance of seasonally rotating fruit, vegetables, and herbs, along with flowers like agastache, echinacea, and yarrow. “They value the garden’s beauty and the food it produces equally,” says Bennett of her clients. “It makes for a really rich experience.”

Horn and Bennett work closely together to grow plants that Sophia likes to eat and look at, such as kale, Swiss chard, and spinach, as well as purple varieties of echinacea, basil, and shiso, because their colors have a soothing effect. Recently, the family introduced the finches, along with chickens, a bunny, outdoor cats, and bees. “Nothing brings energy to a space like animals,” Horn says. “Everything happily coexists.”

Sophia is homeschooled, and often studies in this outdoor classroom while moving her feet across the soft gravel and rubbing lavender leaves between her fingers to release its calming scent. “Working in a garden is a clinically proven way to lower the anxiety that so often challenges people with this diagnosis,” says Horn, who invites researchers, clinicians, educators, and families affected by autism over to share what they’ve learned. “It’s a place to re-energize,” she says—or to simply unwind. “Sophia and I go there frequently throughout the day to walk around, smell the flowers, or sit and have tea. It’s like our own private heaven.”