Relax and unwind in your garden

In her Ohio labyrinth garden, a mindfulness teacher invites others on meditative walks where they take in the fragrances, colors, textures, and sounds of their surroundings.

By Teresa Woodard

Updated on March 11, 2024

labyrinth garden — At the beginning of each labyrinth walk, mindfulness teacher and landowner Annamarie Fernyak invites participants to choose an intention for their walk and coaches them to engage all their senses. Photo:
Bob Stefko

When she was new to the practice, Annamarie Fernyak struggled with sitting meditations. So she started walking. “When you’re in a walking meditation, the process is essentially the same, but there’s a lot more to keep your mind occupied,” the mindfulness teacher from Lucas, Ohio, says.

Fernyak is not a somber scholar. She laughs often, talks spiritedly, and dreams big. She’s logged many miles in meditative walks on her and husband Carl’s farm, at nearby parks, along Spain’s famous Camino de Santiago, and through several formally designed labyrinths.

One day, she had the idea to create a labyrinth on her own property. She initially thought of simply embedding stones in a grassy area in a spiral shape. But once she got talking with her garden designer, Dwight Oswalt, the concept grew to 88 feet in diameter. She went on to hire Peabody Landscape Group, based in Columbus, to build a stacked-stone perimeter wall and a crushed gravel path patterned after the famous labyrinth on the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France. Oswalt bordered the winding path with layers of grasses, herbs, annuals, and perennials, including many natives and pollinator favorites.

“It’s meant to be very tactile with plants to touch, feel, and eat,” Fernyak says.

Today, Fernyak leads others on walking meditations through her labyrinth garden, including an annual walk to celebrate the summer solstice. As they walk down the hill from her farmhouse, she explains labyrinth walking as an ancient meditative practice that crosses cultures, including Greek, Celtic, Native American, and Mayan. She also shares how daily mindfulness has shaped her own life. She founded Mind Body Align — a shared space for wellness practitioners — and embarked on several community development projects, especially focused on women.

As a group enters the labyrinth, each participant can engage in the garden in a different way — pausing to admire a sunflower’s seed head, trailing fingers through the undulating grasses, picking a stem of mint to appreciate its aroma, noticing a buzzing bumblebee on a milkweed bloom. After the walk, they gather for a potluck dinner to share their experiences.

No matter the season, labyrinth walkers find something new to share or explore, each encounter unique. Fernyak recalls a fun family walk that was anything but meditative with nieces, nephews, and two playful German shepherds. On another magical walk, 30 participants spontaneously formed a circle in the labyrinth’s center. “Every single walk is different, and that’s the beauty,” Fernyak says.

Labyrinth plants to engage the senses

Use scented, textural, colorful, and native plants, as Annamarie Fernyak has, for your own meditative garden.

Purple garden phlox (Phlox paniculata)

These large purple flowering clusters attract butterflies and hummingbirds and offer a spicy vanilla-clove perfume.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)

Pink clustered blooms draw a plethora of pollinators, including monarch butterflies, to this plant. The garden’s four other milkweeds include swamp (Asclepias incarnata), whorled (Asclepias verticillata), showy (Asclepias speciosa), and butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa).

Rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium)

This Ohio native has ornamental seedpods and pairs great with tall grasses.

Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium ‘Standing Ovation’)

This textural blue-green grass turns a striking crimson in fall and is an important food source for wildlife. The garden’s other grasses include prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis), native Muskingum sedge (Carex muskingumensis), switch grass (Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’), feather reed grass (Calamagrostis × acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’), and red Japanese blood grass (Imperata cylindrica ‘Red Baron’).

Blazing star (Liatris spicata)

This prairie native brings vertical interest to the labyrinth. Its purple spikes draw bumblebees and butterflies.

Sunflower (Helianthus spp.)

These taller flowers create vertical interest at eye level. Try both annual and perennial varieties.

Lamb’s-ear (Stachys byzantina)

This semievergreen perennial features soft, silvery leaves and purple-flowered spikes.

Coneflower (Echinacea spp.)

Plant purple or yellow varieties of this prairie icon. The dainty pale purple coneflower (E. pallida) blooms in June; its deeper purple cousin (E. purpurea) blooms in July. For yellow blooms, try gray-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) and cutleaf coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata).