“Size isn’t everything” is a claim you will often hear being made. In certain circumstances it may well not be “everything”, but it can have a significant role. This certainly applies when you have a small garden, and you decide to employ a landscape designer to make the most of its less than generous dimensions.
Thankfully, with the skills and experience that professional landscapers have, they will know multiple ideas, techniques, and tricks that will allow them to create for you a landscaping design that maximizes the potential of the limited space which your garden offers. Here are 7 of those ways it might be achieved.
#1: Using Their Imagination
It is hard to put a quantifiable value on this but one of the greatest talents that many landscape designers have is the means to use their imagination to create solutions where others cannot think of any. That is invaluable when they are trying to design a garden where the amount of space is extremely limited. However, do it they can by triggering their creative juices and seeing pictures in their mind’s eye of how everything is going to fit in the available space.
#2: Creativity With Respect To Shapes And Sizes
Part of the design skills a landscape designer will be able to offer is utilising unconventional shapes, design attributes and customisations where possible, to create a garden design that maximises the space and allows everything to work within that design. Examples could be reshaping a small lawn, using smaller paving stones, or resizing existing features.
#3: Choosing Smart Features And Furniture
Any small garden is going to have limitations on how many features and how much furniture can be included in any new landscape design. This is where experienced landscape designers turn to solutions such as folding or expanding patio furniture, features that can be moved rather than being fixed or simply choosing smaller versions of items.
#4: Create A Multi-Level Garden
This might not be possible in extremely small gardens, but it is a great design technique to give the impression of greater space. Rather than having everything on a single level, you tier it all into three levels or terraces. This creates a look and a feeling that there is more garden area than there is. One other benefit is that aesthetically it looks great in any garden, large or small.
#5: Go Up Instead Of Across
A variation on the previous idea that a landscape designer might utilise is not to use multi-levels but to include as many vertical features as they can. Examples include climber plants, plants mounted on walls or fences, and stacking items wherever possible such as hangers plants pots and ornaments. This also helps to reduce the perception that the garden is cluttered.
#6: Using Smaller Sized Plants
This might seem like a no-brainer, but you would be amazed at how many amateur gardeners plant large plants in their small garden and when that plant grows there is no room for anything else. A landscape designer will know species of plants across many types such as trees, shrubs, flowers, and bushes which do not become huge when they grow or flower. Some of these are classified as dwarf variants of plants, which is an obvious clue to their diminutive sizes.
#7: Exclude Boundaries Such As Fencing
A theme through many of the ideas that landscape designers will use for a small garden is to create the perception of more space. A practical example of that, and an idea you should look to, is not having any boundary fencing around your garden. Security, privacy, and the goodwill of your neighbour all need to be considered, but if it is possible, having no fence will make your garden feel much bigger than its actual size.