Plenty, I'm sure, but also think of sounds--insects, birds, wind, rain--and the feel of air on your skin, warm or cool, in movement or stagnant, humid or dry.

I think perhaps I would appreciate the change of seasons more than I do now, the smells are so different over the year. Just now there are hyacinths, narcissi, sweet violets and today I noticed that the buds on Viburnum carlesii 'Aurora' are ready to burst, one of the sweetest scents of spring. Soon after that there will be fruit blossom, azaleas, lilacs, and honeysuckles. I regret that previous owners of my house planted the last too close so the scents are mixed and they are both quite distinct scents. In early summer there is rather too much to smell first from peonies, then from roses and lavender, madonna lilies, nepeta, all culinary herbs, phloxes, more violets and many more flowers. Late summer is fairly scentless in my garden, apart from late phloxes. Many of my late roses don't smell very much so the feeling is dry and dusty in August, although I have carpets of thyme in many places but it's a dry smell at that time of the year, not as spicy as earlier. Autumn is tangy and earthy, any sweetness comes from ripening fruit. The first snow smells fresh and clean and some conifers smell now as never before. I realize that if I should become blind I would have to find more late scented flowers.

Ah yes the sounds of the birds! ... the cooing of the turtle doves (they're doing it now!).... in late summer there's the crick crick of the cicadas.... a dusty sound for a dusty time, just like you say mariannese.... but your garden sounds like paradise!!

Oh and just thinking of the some of the great gardens like Villa Gamberaia or La Foce..... running your hands over the boxwood hedges..... or the italian cypresses..... a huge sensory pleasure. Also at Villa Gamberaia.... the cool of the water parterre on a hot day in August... with your feet on the pebble mosaics.

Over a century ago, Helen Keller was invited to a Rose Show in New York City. She was on a political bent then and complained mightily about the unfairness that some were poor and some were rich.
But before she went there, she was given a huge bouquet of flowers and she caressed one , sniffed it and commented that it was Lamarque because she knew the scent and the petals. Helen Keller and the rose show people.

Ann, I LOVE that story...in so many ways. HK's ability to use her available senses to both recognize a beautiful rose and name it with precision and clarity speaks miles about opening ones senses to the world, people and all the living things that surround us. Even with eyes to see and ears to hear we can be blind and deaf to what is right in front of our faces. Like HK recognizing, identifying and appreciating a rose, we must first RECOGNIZE an injustice and NAME it before we can appreciate its effects and work to cure it...by providing access to jobs, making low cost higher education the norm, raising salaries to a living wage, creating a national system of financial security, etc. (I borrowed HK's soapbox for a moment.) Lamarque is a truly amazing rose, like HK herself. I thank roses everyday because they insist that I stop and admire them and notice what is right in front of me.

"Why in this land of great wealth is there great poverty? Why [do] children toil in the mills while thousands of [adults] cannot get work, why [do those] who do nothing have thousands of dollars a year to spend?" (HK, 1912, "adults" and "those" added for inclusion)

Anna-Lyssa, what a wonderful thread! Since I am such a visual person, I sometimes sit in my garden with my eyes closed while I breathe and listen and touch. Our gardens are such rich pieces of the larger fabric of the world. I like to first focus my senses on whatever is immediately around me and gradually spread the reach of my senses farther afield until I am noticing what's very far away but still in the range of my experience.

I am relived your eye condition has improved! That would indeed be scary. You are quite the philosopher, turning a moment of vision loss into a moment of spiritual and sensual enlightenment!

Carol

I had first seen the Helen Keller and Roses photo I linked to in a newspaper from that day when I was searching for early US rose show history.
Google images has some others that you simply must see.

A young woman and a rose

And much later in her life.

A not so young Helen Keller and roses

A beautiful thread, Anna-Lyssa. A friend and colleague of my DH's has very limited vision (uses a cane and my DH accompanies him a lot on the bus to go to work). I like this guy (Andrea), and his wife, and these are people that I'd like to invite someday to "see" my garden. Gotta get those railings put up on the steps, and get the paths more accessible, and lalalalala...will I ever get there eventually ? Good comments, all of you ,good, good stuff ,especially Carol and Mariannese.

BTW, Andrea sure as heck sees with his spirit VERY well.

And so very like her earlier life
And at the age of 80

For the elderly and for those with vision problems, you want the scents to be as strong as possible. Morning visits are so much more than late afternoon when the scents are diffuse by the power of sunlight.

Anna-Lyssa, I wanted to add,just to be on the safe side,it might be a good idea to talk to a doctor about that scary event.

bart so sweet!!! I shall. It really was something in my eye that wouldn't come out despite drops etc etc. Which finally did. But you're right, one never knows. Anyway if I do go blind, I've decided I'll plant a lot of boxwood hedges as guides. I'm also quite curious about what it's like to "garden" (plant, tend, amend the soil, mulch, water, deadhead, remove caterpillars, train and move things, etc.) without seeing. I'm going to experiment a little with that this weekend if I have time to garden.

I love this part in the book "Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden" by Eleonor Perenyi, from the chapter on "Night":

"A garden, however familiar, is another place on a summer night [...] the biggest change is that of proportion and texture produced by seeing things in black and white. My first experience of the phenomenon wasn't in a garden, or at night, but in Rome in broad daylight, in the company of a friend who is colour-blind. I had always known this about him and never grasped the significance until one day I stupidly said something about the apricot glow of Roman palaces. 'You forget' he said gently ' I don't see that. I don't know what you mean.' The words were more than an embarrassment, they were a revelation, for he was the subtlest of observers, who had often pointed out to me details and refinements in paintings and architecture, and even plants, which, blinded in my own way by colour, I had missed [...] Strolling among the ruins on the Palatine, my friend had again and again identified the wild flowers growing there by their shapes, pointing out to me especially the beauty of the acanthus..."

bart, also I think you should invite Andrea and his wife to your garden! Imagine how much they'd appreciate it..... it must be such a treat to see/feel/smell/live in your garden!

stillanntn6b, those photos are incredible..........

Carol, you are the philosophic one! Also your garden must be a real treat for the senses.............!