So. The planning and making goes on.
This week I have received samples of silicone cord, dibond mirror, cedar, faceted lenses, perspex tube, coloured mirror perspex. I've visited the carpenter that I'm collaborating with and spoken to engineers about making steel components, stonemasons about carving and a cnc company about cutting and etching pretty much everything.
I'm trying to incorporate a rich variety of textures and visual qualities. Sensory gardens for children are an interesting concept, I'm having to avoid the dangerous and unpleasant: the itchy, the sharp and scratchy, the very hot, and very cold to name a few that I suspect would be unwelcome. Further more the demands for it to be very low/no maintenance means that I'm wary of incorporating elements that are inherently fragile, that flutter and that could be ripped, that will rot or corrode.
But I keep reminding myself that other elements in the garden will offer other sensory qualities, the shifting seasons bringing changes to plant-life, with transitions in colour, scent and texture. The squishy and the slimey, and the rough, the rigid. Cold stones in winter and warmed ones in summer.