6 small garden design ideas

Small gardens are the new normal, most of us are either renting a home, or have a smallish house that’s most likely got a smallish garden to boot. But having a garden that’s tight on space doesn’t mean you have to limit your ideas.

There are many ways to gather inspiration for your garden, but one of the best ways to get the ideas flowing is to see designs ‘in the flesh’. Visit local open gardens and flower shows, take photos, search online and make a mood board to get your creativity fired up. And take a look at these ideas, which demonstrate how anything’s possible style-wise and you can definitely create your own oasis in even the tiniest space.

These pictures are all show gardens at RHS Flower Show Tatton Park – the designers’ brief specified that these Back to Back Gardens were just 6m x 4m – but just look at what they managed to create!

1. The garden for people with no time to garden

This garden illustrates how effective a garden of evergreens can look – the design relies on texture and form rather than being full of lots of colourful blooms

2. The mini cottage garden for city dwellers

This plot uses the same plants as a large cottage garden might have, but with fewer varieties, and a neatly clipped box hedge and spiral topiary that typify cottage style

Perennials are any plant living for at least three years. The term is also commonly used for herbaceous perennials which grow for many years (To compare: annual = one year, biennial = two years).

perennials

3. The I-can’t-be-bothered-to-dig garden

If the prospect of digging is too much to bear, try adding raised beds and filling with compost to grow flowers, fruit and vegetables. The smaller beds make it much easier to stay on top of weeds, too

Adding raised beds or borders – especially if your garden soil if awful – is a fast way to create impact. You can buy them as kits or make them yourself if you’re handy with a spot of DIY, and once made you can get planting straight away. Small raised beds like these can grow a huge variety of herbs, veg and fruit, and the addition of a few flowers provides a pop of colour.

4. The plant-lovers' paradise garden

Greenhouses allow you to prolong the gardening year and even tiny, relatively inexpensive ones can give you hours of pleasure growing plants

If you love sowing and growing, don’t rule out the possibility of a greenhouse in a small garden  – this one fits neatly into a corner surrounded by a colourful mix of

Perennials are plants that live for multiple years. They come in all shapes and sizes and fill our gardens with colourful flowers and ornamental foliage. Many are hardy and can survive outdoors all year round, while less hardy types need protection over winter. The term herbaceous perennial is used to describe long-lived plants without a permanent woody structure (they die back to ground level each autumn), distinguishing them from trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs.

5. Subtle colours for a dry border

The soft foliage colours of different heucheras, grasses and ferns combined with flowering foxgloves and blue salvias result in a lovely tonal balance

Whatever you do with your garden, make sure you fill it with plants you like the look of. Colour schemes are subjective, but the subtle tones of this border are easy on the eye and may suit if you don’t like zingy tones but want more than green foliage. The russet leaves of heucheras mix well with bronze grasses, sedums and salvias with their blue spires of flower, and many of these plants would be happy in relatively dry flower beds.

6. A quiet corner in a tiny courtyard

Who wouldn't love this little hideaway on a balmy evening to garden, write or just unwind? Making your space unique is one of the delights of gardening

Privacy is a difficult thing to find in a tight urban space – but by creating a tiny shelter in a courtyard garden you can get your precious me-time while the world whizzes on outside, in the milder months at least.  The whole point of a garden is to add objects and plants that you love and reflect your personality – this recycled post box, for example, delivers a quirky touch and makes the garden unique.