Planning your small scale garden – part 1

Planning a small-scale garden is far harder than planning a large garden. For example, if you buy the wrong things there’s no place to hide them – that ugly seat confronts you until you cut your losses and get rid of it. It is all too easy to get disheartened and give up, but even with a small garden, you can develop a life-long, life-enhancing interest. It really can mean that you are able to ‘lose yourself’ in your garden, forgetting the stress and pain life often delivers. Gardens can be very therapeutic.

The oft-quoted phrase “the outside room” is a good planning tool. You can apply more or less the same rules for planning your outside room as you do the inside ones. The garden has furniture – steady-state stuff like seating, storage, and a clothes line. It has a floor covering of grass and/or paving and is enclosed by verticals, generally fences or walls upon which you can ‘hang things’. In addition it has the decorative stuff. In this case, not pictures or ornaments, but living matter. Plants that grow, change, become more or less beautiful, even develop bad habits. Plants can be more like pets or children than mere style accessories.

You and your significant other(s) may often have totally opposing ideas about what they want from a garden. He who does the work should call the shots, and this can serve to develop negotiating skills!

This can be totally intimidating and disheartening, especially at first. You are, effectively, in a foreign country where you don’t know the language. However, some plants will appeal to you so be confident in your taste. Read labels and information, check for ultimate height and spread. Plant choices will be covered more fully in part 2 of this article.

Your tastes may well change over the years. People frequently choose “bright” gardens at first. Later they may value other factors, such as colour harmonies with foliage or flowers. Perhaps a garden style that’s jungle-like and exotic appeals, or a soothing and peaceful space. You may want architectural plants such as bamboos or vertical grasses. You can include big plants, some trees and something beautiful to look at all year through. You can even grow apples – perhaps grafted onto ‘dwarfing rootstock’ bearing in mind it takes two trees to fruit.

You will get things wrong – pulling out a weed and finding a label attached is a classic. But you will also get a whole lot right, and it is your garden and your choice.

Next month will be practical plant suggestions for small gardens.

I hope this doesn’t sound ‘preachy’. Enjoy your garden planning!

Susan A. Tindall