Small spaces

From Sarah’s garden to yours

Often, gardens determined to be ‘the best’ are old, large rambling grounds full of botanical treasures and treats at every turn. Gardens where the landscape design advice of not revealing the full glory of the garden in one view is easily applied. Visiting a garden like this is a joy and a pleasure and can easily transport you to another place where all your cares and troubles drift away as its beauty envelopes you in a horticultural heaven.

For many of us though, recreating an epic garden like this is completely out of reach. Owning enough land to create a dream wonderland is beyond most people’s financial grasp and even if one had the funds, substantial land packages just aren’t available in locations convenient to where we want to live and work. That being said, it is still worth pursuing your own garden with the space you have, no matter how small. 

It has been widely proven that surrounding yourself with plants, gardens and green spaces provide significant advantages to your wellbeing and mental health. Spending time in nature reduces stress hormones and creates a sense of calm as well as reducing the symptoms of anxiety and depression. A green space can even improve sleep, memory, and creativity, as well as a number of other well studied benefits that can provide a better quality of life in so many ways.

The key to tapping into the effects of the green goodness is scale. Even if you have a small backyard, a balcony or even a windowsill or tabletop, you can still create a greenspace. 

In a small backyard you need to be bold

If you think small and fill the space with loads of small plants, it can feel cluttered and busy and not the tranquil haven you were hoping for. Less is more in a small garden. If you do want to grow plants in containers, use just a few large pots with large plants to create an open spacious feel. Keep the colour palette simple, and for the hard landscaping like fences, sheds and structures choose light colours that open up the space or neutral colours that allow them to disappear into the background. Make sure garden furniture is in proportion and doesn’t engulf the garden leaving little room for the beneficial plants. 

Allow the garden to extend beyond your boundary and incorporate borrowed views from the neighbour’s trees or a green hill in the distant to draw your eye and create the perception the garden stretches off into the distance. You can even trick your mind to remove the fences entirely with clever planting to disguise the fence. 

You may not be able to recreate the many secret paths of a large garden, however if you can break up your small space with a trellis or screen to create the perception there is something more around the corner and making the garden feel bigger. The added advance here would be you can hide away the unsightly backyard features like rubbish bins. Embrace the small space and make the garden feel cosy and comfortable.

Beautiful balconies

For many, the available green space that comes with their home is barely big enough for a small table and a couple of chairs as modern houses and apartments are built closer and closer together. It can be disheartening to be faced with such a tiny outdoor space, but all is not lost. A green environment can be welcomed into the smallest slither of fresh air. 

A space enclosed by a fence or a wall can easily be adapted to have a trellis attached for climbing plants to scramble up. There are also many ways to introduce vertical growing with stacked container systems attached to the wall with something to suit any budget and can even be cost effectively DIYed if you have the creativity and the time. For low fences and balcony rails there are also many options for containers that easily and safely attach to provide plenty of potential growing space. Hanging baskets can hang from the eaves without taking up floor space, so with a little thinking outside the box you can effortlessly create a green sanctuary in the smallest of spaces. 

There are a few key considerations when creating a balcony garden. Avoid overloading the balcony with heavy objects or large containers filled with potting mix. If possible, check the building plans to see if there is a weight limit to ensure the safety of the structure. The other thing would be to consider the neighbours below especially when watering so your pleasure doesn’t become their pain.

Even smaller

If gardening on the outside is just not possible for whatever reason, there are still plenty of options for growing indoors. The recent popularity of houseplants has meant there are so many different options for you to decorate your house with plants and plenty of great advice wherever you like to find your gardening instructions, in books, magazines and online. You can create a verdant jungle. If you want something a little more interesting, you can try building terrariums. These are miniature ecosystems often designed to mimic a natural landscape, generally contained in a sealed glass container. 

Another indoor gardening option is to create a tabletop garden. Choose a wide mouth container deep enough to support plant roots. To elevate it beyond just house plants, create a miniature garden with small ornaments to represent features you would love to have in a large outdoor garden, or entertain the kids and make it a fairy garden with angelic winged occupants living among the greenery. An indoor garden can provide the same benefits as an outdoor garden without the hard work and heavy lifting. 

Whatever your growing space limitations, for the keen gardener there is always a way to plunge your hands into the soil and bring some greenery into your world.