Small Garden Designs

Small garden designs hold both gigantic benefits and loads of potential. First by way of benefits: It’s small. Second: It’s very easy to maintain. In a small garden, all that is needed is a set of secateurs, a bucket and a mini shovel. This trio of maintenance tools will allow your garden to bounce back to the way it was intended to be with very little effort.   That is, after it matures into that wonderful miniature garden masterpiece in the first instance.  No, you won’t have to trundle around a wheelbarrow, or lug large tools about.  Nor get a hernia digging in frosty ground. But you may consider a small worm farm or a tumble compost bin to recycle materials beneficial to that small garden design.  

Other benefits of having a small garden is the lack of expense, coupled with the ability to purchase rare or unusual plants that'll readily grow in those sheltered, inside positions.  You may also consider a miniature water garden.  Such produce not only lovely visual stimulation, but beneficial humidity for your plants to thrive.

But all these benefits do not come without some negatives. When considering small garden designs, careful assessment and planning is required before their true potential can be realised.

Look to the size and shape of your small garden design. It may well be a tiny urban rectangle/square or a long narrow pathway, bordered on three sides by fences or walls. It may be a balcony, courtyard, deck or a rooftop space - perhaps the only outside patch of fresh air allotted to multiple dwellings.

All these sites have the potential to become intimate enclosures, cosy spots away from the hustle and bustle of inner city life. So how to go about small garden designs?

Firstly, create a plan and stick to it. You'll be surprised what can be achieved if you put your mind to it.

What do you want from your garden? Should its foliage screen your house and windows from prying eyes? Do you want to make a secluded place of refuge in the garden itself? Perhaps, just a space to privately showcase a well-tended small garden design of which you're most proud? Or maybe you'd like one that can to be readily viewed from inside the house - the inside being the main prerogative.

Would you like only certain parts of your garden to be viewed from the street? Both flowers and foliage can create a spectacular display for this type of sharing or hiding. Why not be the envy of your neighbors and share.

Such small garden designs can play an essential part in dressing up a villa, apartment or flat, increasing not only your own satisfaction, but the property's resale value. Designs for picking up and emphasizing the colors of the paintwork, framing a window, or leading the way to a door, gate or other a point of entry, can be used to great effect.

Maybe you desire a family area or a 'place of entertainment,' something specific. Or simply a space arranged to fit multifarious needs.

Whatever it is, put together a list of preference-possibilities and sort them into priority. Use your own inspiration and advice from friends, books, magazines and other outside resources. Or simply check out more data on our website: Apartment-Gardening-Homes. We specialize in this sort of information.

Then once you've made a positive decision on what is realistic and practical for you, get to work. Think laterally about immediate requirements. Also about any future changes that are likely to be made. Use Tony Buzan's "Mind Mapping" technique. But even if you fall down in respect of not anticipating certain changes, because your indoor garden is small, it wont be an enormous task to redesign it.

The best  designs are always simple and yet elegant, involving no complicated arrangements. Select a style, a mood, an impression - and keep to it. Don’t jeopardize the style by adding a complexity of themes such as a Classical Formal European design and a Chinese statue! It will look incongruous.

Your small garden plot is the place where you display your taste as well as meeting your own family, and visitor's needs. If it's your garden, and you'll be the 'maintenance' person, do it the way you want it. That way you'll always retain your enthusiasm.

Keep things to scale with the size of the garden. In a small area. oversized trees, and large features look inappropriate and overwhelming. A large tree will fill the garden with its shade and clog up your small garden space with its roots and leaves.

A large statue or water feature also would look unsettling in a small space garden, as would a bunch of cluttered small ornaments. One medium-sized feature would become your focal point. Such will have a more pleasing and aesthetic impact as it draws the eye to it.

Tricks and illusions can make a small area seem much larger than it really is. Pale, cool flowers like blue, mauve and lime-white recede, whereas bright colors such as orange-reds will leap forward. If you prefer to use bright colors, then combine them in massed plantings where they become a single entity rather than individual pieces.

Use light green or pale lime foliage instead of deep greens, not bright yellows or vibrant reds, which will leap out at you. Shiny foliage has a way of reflecting light and appears to reduce the size and dominance of the plant.

Fine textured foliage seems to move away from the viewer, whereas large leafed forms appear to move forward. lead size can be used to make a garden look bigger if there are large leaves, say at the gate and small leaved specimens at the far end. However, conceal large leafed-plants behind a small-leafed one if you want to use the effect in reverse.

Where your space is long and narrow, you will only increase the effect if you run pathways, gardens or columns of shrubs lengthwise down such a small space garden. Paving patterns running lengthways extend the impression. To reduce it, lay gardens and paving across the site where possible.

Mirrors in the garden can deceive the eye and also increase light in a small area. This makes mirrors good for miniature garden designs. When set vetically directly on a wall, they reflect and expand the garden. Be careful not to place a mirror where it can shock or dismay you from the sudden appearance of yourself! Also keep them away from areas with blinding reflecting sunlight that might sting your eyes and blur your vision. Let them do their job unobstrusively.

Always use heavy duty shatter proof glass for safety and waterproofed edges to protect the backing.

I hope you enjoyed our article, Small Garden Designs. If you would like to be updated with small space and apartment gardening tips abd ideas, you can follow me at www.twitter.com/homesandgarden See you there!

Happy Gardening,

Marty