It’s easy to make more of a small area, as Brett and Sally found out when Toby Buckland turned their raised decking into a colourful wonderland
Like their Victorian terraced house, it has brickwork walls and
wooden flooring. So for inspiration, we looked indoors. With no bare soil to speak
of, pots are the key to bringing life into this garden.
Choose containers in similar colours and shapes – they’ll help tie
everything together, and will look less busy than a dolly-mixture effect of
different designs. Just as you would if you were choosing cushions or curtains,
keep your overarching design scheme in mind.
I decided to use square fibre-clay pots, as they’re lightweight
and easy to carry through the house, but once in place and planted, they look
as hefty as lead.
Square pots give roots more room than round containers and the two
rows lined up like boxy Russian dolls snug against the boundaries. Arranging
them in size order, from large to small, can also lead your eye down a garden
and make it feel roomier.
The key thing is getting the right compost for your containers –
here, I went for a blend of regular multipurpose compost and John Innes that
will hold on to vital nutrients.
Don’t forget to add a bit of controlled-release fertiliser. It
only supplies the feed to the roots of the plant when the weather’s warm, so
you just have to apply it once in the spring and it will be there whenever your
plants need it during the growing season.
When space is tight, plants will have to work hard all the way
through the year to earn their keep. Evergreens are essential, and Nandina
domestica (a bamboo-esque plant with white flowers in spring and fiery red
leaves in the autumn) makes an excellent centrepiece, paired with the purple
Pittosporum ‘Tom Thumb’ – a colourful clipped alternative to box topiary.
Its beautiful leaves will become darker and richer as the weather
turns colder, so there is always something for you to enjoy.
Evergreens will give the garden year-round character, but it’s
what is planted around their feet that creates the colour theme, and lends
everything a lovely, soft feminine look.
For Brett and Sally’s garden, I’ve stuck to fruity plum tones and
reds with complementary peachy orange for contrast, plus blue fescue grass and
bright-leaved heucheras.
These will be supplemented by seasonal zingy orange primroses in
spring, and marigolds and scented petunias in the summer. A lot of shrubs are
too big for small spaces, but thanks to clever breeding, “mini-me” versions
with the same flowers and shape are now available for pots.
Buddleja ‘Buzz’, for example, grows to waist height, and although
loved like its lofty cousins by bees and butterflies, the flowers don’t seed
about.
Kitting out a small garden with utilities makes for an easy life,
and installing automatic irrigation is well worth the expense of bringing in a
plumber.
Once it’s in place, it’s straightforward to use – all you have to
do is adjust the timer to deliver the right amount of water according to the
season, increasing flow and regularity as the weather warms.
Outdoor electrical sockets (again, a job to trust to a
professional) are another thing I wouldn’t be without. With one in place, you
can dock your iPod before a party, and they make installing plug-in-and-play
lighting a breeze.
For Brett and Sally’s garden I’ve used white pea-lights that
instantly create a celebratory atmosphere – and unlike spot-lamps, they cast
few shadows.
Clever storage is a must in small spaces. A micro-shed just 70cm
wide and 50cm deep is more than a place to muster stuff – it’s also perfect for
personalising with a lick of paint and some tea-lights.
But that’s just the start: the joy of gardening in a plot like
this is that it forces you to be creative. Treated timber planks nailed around
the shed roof create an elevated herb garden with cascading rosemary, sage and
thyme varieties around the edge and alpine saxifrage for colour.
A mulch of grit stops the compost bouncing off in heavy rain, and
the automatic irrigation keeps the plants’ roots hydrated.
There’s no reason that a small space can’t be dramatic, and the
good news is that small touches can make a big difference. In Brett and Sally’s
decked area, I’ve built a plant theatre: essentially, a little set of shelves
fixed to the wall for displaying pots of flowering treasures.
It’s raised, which means that everything is at eye level where it
can be enjoyed. The outdoor equivalent of a mantelpiece, it also makes a great
home for decorations such as clocks and wall plaques.
I’ve left my favourite feature until last. It’s a solution to the
issue of what to do with the less-than-exciting garden wall. For Brett and
Sally, I’ve created a series of Verti-plant pockets, filled with an evergreen
patchwork of amethyst, green and lime heucheras, purple bergenias and cascading
carex to create a tapestry of year-round colour and flower.
Plumbed into the automatic irrigation, the plants look after
themselves – and best of all, transform an eyesore into a hanging garden that
doesn’t take up any ground space.
