Small Garden IdeasRaised beds, food growing tips, recipes and more
Whether you are design a unmarried small-scale space or multiple diminished space within a heavy landscape , these tips provided by Greg Loades , author ofThe Modern Cottage Garden , will help oneself you define that outer space with both beauty and practicality .
Photo by : Greg Loades .
1. Never underestimate how much a plant will grow
When I ab initio institute the garden , I was keen to have a ‘ full ’ look in the first year so planted thing quite close together . I did n’t in reality involve to do this though — set young plants in early spring , it is easy to underestimate how much they will spring up in a single growing season !
Although this devote me the full look I desired in twelvemonth one , it mean that by year two , a lot of plants had been ‘ push out ’ by others . This can be easily solved by moving roses or shrubs at the end of winter to give other plant around them more elbow room .
If you need to move perennial plants such as erysimum , aster , or genus Rudbeckia , then waitress until they have develop young shoots and move them in spring when the soil has started to warm up . Perennial plants that have ‘ multiplied ’ can be dissever in leaping to halt them push out other plant life .
I also found that the evergreen grass Carex ‘ Everest ’ was by far the most vigorous flora in the garden and has had to be lifted and dissever in bound to reduce the sizing of the plant .
There are always solutions to get around the issue of an overcrowded garden , but I ’ve learned that the easiest solution is to not overplant in the first place .
2. The effectiveness of roses
Some gardener study roses to be ‘ old lid ’ but if you develop good ones , they are priceless plus in a small garden . I have grown sizable , forward-looking , repetition - bloom varieties that have yield three , four , or even five flushes of blossom in one acquire time of year .
rose wine tally romance and charm to a garden figure and they are easily hold in . If they are adopt up too much place , then undesirable stems can simply be pruned off at the base .
For a small garden I would specially commend ‘ Princess Anne ’ , which grow to around 4 foot ( 1.2 m ) tall , has very glossy healthy leave of absence and large cluster of scented bloom which age from dark purple to plum red . Another favorite is frilly pink flowered ‘ Maid Marion ’ , which will ride out to a like sizing and has the inviolable scent of any rose wine that I know of .
3. A lick of paint goes a long way
When plan a small garden from scratch , there is inevitably a waiting period when you have to be patient and allow the design to grow as the plants maturate . However , I settle to add up strong color to the design by painting the wooden surface in my garden with colored Sir Henry Joseph Wood stain before it was planted . This dedicate an implicit in structure to the garden as the plant gradually grow up to mix with the color scheme of the furniture .
In the first year , I pick out a cool green subtlety of paint to complement the pale purple and soft , variegated greens of the planting . In twelvemonth two , I take a bolder Uvularia grandiflora blue so that the furniture would n’t be lost among the larger , more highly-developed works .
4. There is power in repeat planting
Planting the same plant in more than one place may seem like a strange thing to do in a small garden ; but if you do it meagerly , it has a big impact . I used Carex ‘ Everest ’ and its smaller first cousin ‘ Eversheen ’ throughout the garden and it has helped to link up all the plants in the garden and make the home look like a ‘ whole ’ rather than a scattering of sundry plants .
I also on purpose use these evergreen plants more than once to create a ‘ backbone ’ of planting that keeps the garden look fresh and leafy all class round . Just do n’t overdo it ! My convention is to seek not expend a flora more than three times .
5. Raised beds make fine edges
Most of the plants in my garden are growing in resurrect beds which creates opportunities to in effect show off slews of dissimilar ‘ edging plant ’ . Raised bed are normally colligate with growing vegetables , but they are very effective at caparison cosmetic plants . The land warms up faster in spring and the plant are promote so that they are easier to see in all their glory .
Edging industrial plant such as feabane mullet , Grass , and variegated common ivy have been able to show off against the one-sided background of the painted raised bed in a way that would not have been possible had they been edging a borderline with a low , grass edge .
See more of Greg ’s garden in his Quran , The Modern Cottage Garden : A sweet Approach to Classic Style , and on Instagram @hull_urban_gardener .
