Each sanctuary garden is unique just like the person creating one. There are no hard and fast rules. The relationship between humans and nature that Dency refers to is important. The making of a garden allows us to co-create with nature. We work around a stone, a root, a hillside, giving deference to what's already there.
Plants take their own shapes and sometimes demand their own location.
We just look for harmony, trusting in a higher presence. No one knows this better than Dorothy Maclean, one of the founders of the Findhorn gardens in Northern Scotland. Her clairvoyant abilities allowed her to communicate with the devas, or spiritual essences, of plants. The flowers and vegetables in the gardens delighted in telling Dorothy how to care for them. Soon the gardens were famous for the huge size of their vegetables and the multitude of flowers.