How to make the most of your small garden
Surely it’s logical that a small garden should be the easiest to design, but this is a common misconception. It’s an odd thing, but small gardens are often the trickiest. Those of us living in towns and cities may not have sprawling acres, so you need to make the best use of your space to create that private and tranquil oasis that’s functional too. So, how do you make your garden look and feel bigger? Here are my top design tips for a small garden.
Hide the boundaries
Often the first idea that comes to mind is to cut everything back and make the lawn bigger. However, removing all the planting and installing a large lawn from wall to wall will not make your garden feel bigger. In fact, it does quite the opposite. The eye immediately travels to the boundary and defines the space.
Instead you need to divide the space up into separate ‘rooms’; areas that have their own identity. Hide the boundary with planting, paving or pergolas, and bring the focus of our attention towards the centre. Now when you enter the garden, the eye doesn’t immediately rush to the fence, but it finds different points of interest around the garden, moving around the different rooms. You’ve just made your garden feel a lot bigger than it actually is.
Think vertical
Whilst your floorspace might be limited, you might have lots of vertical space that we can play around with and maximise. Trees add lots of interest and throw the eye upwards, and other structures will do the same. You could also think about including:
pergolas
arches
trellis
obelisks
If you are on a sloping site, creating raised terraces can offer additional interest too. Make the most of bare walls and fences by growing plants up them on trellis, in an array of pots attached to the wall or on shelving to add interest.
Trick the eye
In 1832 the two famous artists Turner and Constable were hanging their latest paintings at the annual Royal Academy exhibition. Constable had used some vivid colours in his painting, and it was grabbing all the attention from Turner’s seascape. Overnight, Turner decided to take his paints into the exhibition and paint a large red buoy in the foreground of his piece. Immediately, his painting stood out and grabbed all the attention.
We can use this trick in your garden design too. If we use bold, vivid colours we will immediately catch the eye and can make the garden appear smaller. If instead we use subtler tones; greens, whites, violets, blues, blacks they will recede into the background and create an illusion of space.
Another option is to use different sized plants and objects. For instance, placing a large pot in the foreground and a smaller pot of the same design further away, tricks the eye into thinking that the garden is longer than it is.
Furniture
Garden furniture can often be bulky and takes up precious space in a small garden. Instead, why not try creating a built-in seating or dining area? This can take up much less space and can be built to make the best use of unloved features in the garden; perhaps in a disused corner or alongside a neighbour’s wall.
The borrowed view
This is a classic technique used by the best garden designers throughout the centuries! Look beyond your garden fence and what can you see? Is there a neighbour’s tree that you like the look of, perhaps a spire of a local church, or a view of the local park? If so, then let’s use it. Open up the view from your garden; trim the hedge back or drop the height of the fence so that you get a glimpse of it from your garden.
This makes your garden feel much bigger as the eye is drawn to objects that are beyond the boundary of your fence. You can accentuate this by framing the scene with plants or using structures to lead the eye towards this view.
Overall, by using these techniques you can craft a beautiful area that will suit your needs perfectly. These are all elements that I would consider implementing in your garden. If you would like some more ideas about how to make the best use of your small garden, why not click here to see how we have approached this challenge in some of our other projects?
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