Small Garden Landscaping Ideas
Clients with small gardens are often intimidated and unsure of how to design their backyards to get the most out of their space. From a design perspective small gardens can be challenging because all the site logistics, such as drainage, must be dealt with in a relatively small space and there is a strong desire to make the space as functional and beautiful as possible. There are few key things to keep in mind when developing a small garden than you may find helpful.
- Focus on a theme or a primary use for the space and stick to it. Often developing the space as an outdoor room or extension of your living area is a good place to start. Lounging, dining, and entertaining spaces are functional and multipurpose. If you want to turn the whole space into a putting green then you need to really like golf.
- Be bold. Less is more in a small backyard. This will require compromises initially but when the final product is presented you will be happy with the time spent designing in this fashion.
- Use a restricted pallet of plant material, this will make the space seem larger and more unified.
- Keep focal points to a minimum. Key on a fireplace, water feature, or other element to draw the eye and bring the viewer out into the space and help to anchor the space.
- Use borrowed viewed, sometimes known as borrowed landscape, to your advantage. Sometimes the space beyond your backyard can be enhanced by the way your space is designed.
- Utilize large format pavers, also known as slabs, rather than small paving stone to provide the illusion of greater space. The same effect can be achieved with concrete products by using a large stamp or dividing the patio into segments with control joints.
- Limit the number of hardscaping and paving materials. As with other elements, this restrained pallet will pay off in the illusion of greater space.
- For occasional use items consider portability, like a portable gas firepit or a dining table that can be folded away between larger gatherings.
- Utilize three dimensional elements like pergolas, screens, fireplaces, feature walls to add interest, provide privacy, and enhance the feeling of being in an outdoor room.
- Bring textures, colors, and materials from inside the home outside. This will create a space that feels like an extension of the home. You could use the same stone from an inside fireplace on an outside fireplace, or echo a fabric from inside furnishings to outside ones.
- Choose furnishings that are comfortable and appropriately scaled for the space. Again, less is more, and too many small items will make the space feel restricted.
- For splashes of seasonal color consider adding some pots of annuals.
- Accessories such as colorful throw pillows on furnishings can also add some seasonal interest.
Once you start to recognize the potential that your space has it becomes easier to embrace and explore the possibilities. A good landscape designer will help you through this process and make sure the results make you proud of your home.
Small Garden Landscaping Ideas Video Transcript
We're often asked if we do small gardens. People say I have a small garden and I don't know what to do with it. Well, we do, in fact, do small gardens, and they're fun to design and implement. There's lots that can be done.
Typically, the scale of a small garden lends itself to the development of the space as an outdoor room. So a courtyard effect, usually a patio or deck, provides the floor fences.
Privacy screens and plants provide the walls, and you can consider having a roof over it. In some respect. A small tree could provide some of this effect, or a Pergola is a good option. Pergolas give you an open beam area effect that still lets light in but provides that sense of enclosure when you were down in the backyard. In terms of structures, something like a fireplace is a good option in a small backyard. It gives you warmth, gas or wood fired. Depending upon the size of the space. It provides a focal point looking out from the home. It could give wind protection or privacy and really acts as a draw to bring people out into the space in a small backyard.
A small water feature is an effective element to add to the landscape something like a small bubbler rock pond-less feature. Low maintenance gives you that little bit of sound and motion in the garden and then capping it off with appropriate plant materials and perhaps outdoor lighting. Lots could be done with a small backyard.
Get in contact with us. We'll discuss what you've got and we'll go from there
Landscaping Idea Photos - Small Garden Landscaping Ideas
