Plans for Small Gardens

INTRODUCTION

Whether in town or in the middle of the country, looking out on to your garden can be an overwhelming experience, stirring up a wealth of emotions. It may be that looking out at your garden leaves you excited, depressed or simply confused, but there’s no denying that any outdoor space is precious, no matter what size it is. Once built, even the smallest garden plays an important part in extending the useable space of your property, becoming an outdoor room to enhance you and your family’s quality of life.

Often, as you stare out from your window to consider the outdoor space beyond, a bout of head-scratching will ensue, culminating in a list of befuddling questions: what to do with the space, what to include, where to begin, what and how to build features, and what to plant?

It is important not to feel overwhelmed or disheartened by all of these considerations; the plot of land outside of your house is essentially a combination of elements, which, when combined together, can create the perfect garden to suit your needs. The secret to creating a successful garden, particularly when space is at a premium, is to consider those things that are most important to you, such as the individual characteristics of soil type, or how the surrounding environment might affect your garden. Don’t be tempted to include the wide lawn, tall trees and deep planting borders associated with larger gardens; attempting to reduce all of these elements to fit in to a small space will result in an uncohesive muddle where nothing seems quite large enough and your garden begins to feel crowded. Concentrate on those elements that suit your personal style, and that lend themselves to your lifestyle, with its possible time constraints, the style of your house and the surroundings that your garden lies within. Once you’ve considered these factors you can develop the essential elements of your garden to create maximum impact. Remember that less is sometimes more. Your garden can be limited to only a few elements but still be strikingly effective; a low-maintenance, minimalist terrace surrounded by a few carefully selected structural plants and sculptural elements – which change through seasons, weather and light – can be a wonderful place to relax in or contemplate from indoors. Whilst vegetables can be mixed through wider plantings, your small space garden can become an urban potager, or a family friendly garden built to attract wildlife. The choice is ultimately yours.

Successful gardens rarely happen on their own, they are usually carefully planned and designed in order to maximize their potential. This is extremely important in the small garden, which is open to intense scrutiny; in a small space, the whole garden can be viewed and assessed in one glance. As a rule of thumb, the smaller the garden, the more important good design becomes. Keep things simple, stick to one overall style, choose complementary materials and plants, and never be tempted to cram in more features than your space will allow. Planning the whole garden in advance is crucial to its success.

An important exercise is to create a wish list of what you’d ideally like your garden to include. Next, realistically consider how many features your garden will have room for, what time you will need to look after your garden and, equally important, what budget you have to construct your garden. Drawing up a scale plan of your ultimate garden is not only a good way of working through your planned inclusions, it will also help you to identify the features that are essential as well as those that you can live without. A plan will also allow you to work out practical sizes for seating areas, border size and storage options too. Finally, a scale presentation plan illustrating the end result of your space will allow you to realistically consider the space you have to work with and what quantities of materials you will need – always remember that plans indicate space, and material selections and initial plant purchase size can be up or downgraded depending on how much you have to spend.

Most often, particularly if this small outdoor space is your first, deciding upon what you actually like can be the biggest hurdle to overcome. And this is where I hope this book will help. Hopefully, within one of the ten variously styled gardens included, you’ll find a style that suits you, elements from different gardens that you might like to combine, or a starting point from which to interpret and develop a garden that is personal to you.

Once you’ve decided upon the style you’d like to take, the garden will begin to unfold. In these pages you’ll find helpful advice on choosing materials and plants, building the garden yourself, or employing professionals to carry out the work for you. There are also comprehensive material and plant lists for each project, which will take the mystery out of the sometimes daunting prospect of building your own garden and tackling various horticultural techniques. However you choose to interpret these various tried and tested garden projects, and whatever style you choose, be confident enough to go with your instincts and enjoy the journey. After all, gardens are for people, not just for plants, and though the gardens within these pages were designed and constructed for others, they will hopefully offer you the inspiration and help to develop a garden that is distinctly yours.

Ann-Marie Powell

Exterior lighting transforms your garden after dark, and it also extends the hours you can spend enjoying it.

Even a tiny seating area will allow you to relax and enjoy the sights, sounds and scents of your garden.

Linking hard landscaping colours to your plant palette is a wonderful way to create a cohesive whole.

This city garden echoes the bold lines and architectural shapes of its urban surroundings.

URBAN GARDEN

PLANNING THE GARDEN

Small, overlooked, lacking in privacy; often noisy, with awkward shapes and difficult nooks and crannies – urban gardens are, generally, frustrating! Throw into the mix a young family with three small children – who want space to play in, ride bicycles and grow their own plants – and the demands upon this urban plot become extremely high.

Whether a roof garden, a balcony, an awkward space between house and street or a communal space, an urban outdoor area or patch of ground is, in many ways, infinitely more precious than a small space in a rural environment, which is often surrounded by the luxury of trees, fields and flowers. As well as the owners themselves, passers by, neighbours and wildlife can all benefit from an urban garden, whatever its size. Even the most challenging of spaces can be transformed into an interesting, cultivated oasis, amidst the concrete grey buildings and high-octane atmosphere of the city. Have a go.

DESIGN ELEMENTS

On this project, a long, dark, narrow corridor at the side of the house (the site of the front door) separated this garden into two distinct spaces; one at the front of the property, intended for adult socializing, and a family space at the rear. The key to unlocking the space and making the garden appear larger was to transform the dull corridor into an inviting green pathway. Once greenery was added, it became a plant-lined walkway, an area where the children could run up and down. Viewed from inside, window boxes, crammed with foliage and flowers, add further interest. What was once a functional access route soon became an integral part of the outdoor space, encasing the house in colourful foliage, and linking the front and rear gardens together.

Laying decks at the same level as interior flooring makes a wonderfully smooth transition from inside to out.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

HARD LANDSCAPING

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Concrete (ballast, ordinary Portland cement, water)

DECKING

100 × 100mm (4 × 4in) pressure-treated timber posts for decking frame

100 × 50mm (4 × 2in) pressure-treated timber joists

90mm (3½in) decking frame screws

145 × 20mm (5¾ × ¾in) smooth Balau hardwood decking boards

60mm (2⅓in) decking screws – 28 screws per square metre

Concrete to support frame posts: ballast and ordinary Portland cement (5:1 ratio) plus water

PAVING

MOT type 1 scalpings

Diamond-sawn Yorkstone in bespoke sizes

Bull-nosed pieces of diamond-sawn Yorkstone for steps

Lithofin Stain Stop

Sharp sand and cement laying mix for paving

Soft sand and cement mix (4:1 ratio) for pointing

LAWN

Scottish cobbles as lawn edging behind timber edge strip

Balau timber edging

Treated pointed pegs to support timber edging

Topsoil

Rolawn Medallion turf

HORIZONTAL TRELLIS

40 × 10mm (1½ × ⅓in) cedar timber

75 × 75mm (3 × 3in) pressure-treated timber posts

50mm (2in) external grade screws

Fence posts (studded and resin-fixed to the top of existing wall)

All trellis to be capped with

70 × 45mm (2¾ × 1¾in) top rail

WALLS

Paint

LIGHTING

Hunza adjustable spotlights in powder-coated finish

Hunza wall downlights in powder-coated finish

IRRIGATION

Micro irrigation with computerized timber (available in kit form from garden centres and Internet suppliers)

NB Measure your garden carefully in order to establish the quantities required to suit your particular outdoor space. All lighting to be installed by a qualified electrician.

PLANTING

Vine eyes; planters; window boxes

Compost; well-rotted horse manure; Fish, blood and bone fertilizer

Polystyrene chippings for drainage; gravel for mulch

FRONT GARDEN

Olea europaea specimens

Phyllostachys aurea

Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Miss Jessop’s Upright’

SIDE RETURN PASSAGEWAY

Soleirolia soleirolii

Trailing Hedera helix

REAR GARDEN

Alchemilla mollis

Anemanthele lessoniana

Aquilegia ‘Ruby Port’

Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Golden Dew’

Digitalis ferruginea

Gaura lindheimeri

Helleborus orientalis hybrids

Hemerocallis ‘Ice Carnival’

Isotoma ‘Dark Blue’

Nemesia ‘Confetti’

Phyllostachys nigra

Platycodon grandiflorus

Sorbus aria

Trachelospermum jasminoides

NB Plants are usually grouped in numbers of 3, 5 and 7, but the numbers you choose should be determined by the size of your garden.

HARD LANDSCAPING

It was paramount that in this small urban garden an overall identity was created to bring the disparate spaces together. A simple design with crisp, clean lines, supported by sympathetic contemporary materials, gives the garden clarity and individuality, but at the same time links it to the urban environment. A flow of materials unifies the two outdoor areas. A minimalist approach – echoing the hard, straight lines of the surroundings – is contrasted by a lawn, framed by an area of loose planting, in the rear ‘family’ garden.

PAVING

Low-maintenance paving covers a large area of the garden, creating a simple stylish look with the illusion of expanded garden boundaries. The secret to a successful minimalist--paving layout is in the detail. In large areas, such as this front garden, the quality of the paving and the skill employed in laying it are immediately apparent. A top-end choice, laid perfectly, with well-proportioned slab sizes is essential in creating a cohesive look that brings the spaces together as a whole, and makes the garden appear much larger than its diminutive size.

Here, the diamond-cut Yorkstone was cut into large, rectangular pieces measuring 100 × 40cm (39½ × 15¾in) and 50mm (2in) thick, each piece weighing a considerable amount. It is laid in the front garden in a rectangular asymmetric pattern to give a contemporary and unusual feel. With a main colour of dove grey and swirling brown natural staining, each slab is slightly different from the next. Overall, the effect is a fusion of a natural material with a highly manufactured finish, and so it is perfect for the urban environment. To create a smooth look on an even plane, the paving slabs are laid butt jointed (that is, laid closely together without any mortar joints to distract the eye), and to ensure that there is no movement (sinking areas) all of the paving is laid on a solid concrete foundation. If you’re looking to re-create the effect, it is worth employing the services of a professional landscaper.

The front garden is almost entirely covered with Yorkstone, with tall bamboo planted around the edges to provide privacy. This is enhanced by uplighters, which allow the garden to be enjoyed into the evening. The addition of comfortable sofas – ideal for relaxing in and enjoying balmy evenings and conversation, or just for gazing up at passing clouds on sunny afternoons – still allow plenty of room for parties in this space.

In the long side walkway, each slab is painstakingly laid a pace apart (similar to stepping stones), leaving a small gap between and around each stone. Inspired by Japanese moss gardens, planting every crevice with low-growing Soleirolia soleirolii (commonly known as Baby’s Tears or Mind Your Own Business) makes a deep, maintenance-free green carpet, withstanding both pedestrians and bicycles. The effect is that of paving floating in a sea of green, adding life, vitality and colour to this otherwise shady passageway, and providing the perfect link from the front to the rear garden.

Luckily, in the middle of the passageway, the entrance and step up to the front door have the original tiling, which contrasts wonderfully with the contemporary Yorkstone. The Yorkstone paving extends into the back garden, and is used as a transitional material between the deck and the lawn, and also as access to the storage shed. Here, the paving butts together to make this linking path as understated and easy on the eye as possible.

Do be aware that there are planning regulations governing the laying of paving materials in front gardens. See www.planningportal.gov.uk for the latest advice.

FURNITURE

Furniture and other accessories are key in creating your garden’s overall look and should be given consideration at the initial design stage. In the front, adult area, limited colour-coded accessories give a strong architectural look. Huge planters, with a smooth metallic finish, house large olive trees. These have a bold and dominating presence, accentuated by the toning shades in the paving stone and the texture of the woven, architectural furniture – all of which complete the sophisticated look of this garden.

Reminiscent of Japanese moss gardens, the