Wintertime exposes my backyard patio as a place full of squares and straight lines.
Most of the year, the view of tiles and planters, vertical wainscoting and a perfectly straight fence is softened by round pots, tangled vines and colorful, rounded shrubs.
How could I bring the scene to life until spring returns?
Feng Shui’s Five Elements gave me the solution.
The winter patio scene is dominated by two elements: Earth (the squares) and Wood (the vertical lines), so it needed to be balanced with the three missing elements, Fire, Metal and Water.
An elementally complete patio view
So here’s what I did (for this winter, at least): my wonderful lion statue, guardian of the patio, brings in the Fire element. I created a curving pathway (for Water) out of my rock collection, adding a glittery Metallic garland for even more sparkle and life.
This setup has a bonus I love: every time it snows the rocky pathway holds onto the clean, bright snow longer than everything around it, lighting up the patio and softening my view.
Do you need ideas for softening your views this winter? Have you come up with wonderful solutions for your winter views?
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