Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2007 | Page 70

life

GARDENING

Alan Titchmarsh

GARDENING
IN TINY
SPACES

Photo by Niall McDiarmid

Years ago gardens
were measured in
parts of an acre, but
nowadays the patch
of ground round new
homes on modern
estates may only be
a few square metres.
Shrinking gardens are
a sign of the times.
But believe it or not there
are some advantages to
having a pocket-hanky-sized
patch. Instead of spending
all your summer weekends
struggling with vast expanses
of weeds, lawns and hedging,
you can create and enjoy a
fashionable, affordable and
easily maintained all-year-round
garden. The trick is to make
the most of what you’ve got.
Creating a stunning

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small garden starts with
inspiration, so take a trip to
see the ‘designer’ gardens
at the Hampton Court and
Chelsea flower shows,
collect a few good smallgarden design books, and
save magazine articles and
photos, then sit down for a
proper planning session.
Think through exactly what you
want from your surroundings. If
you’d like garden seats and a
table then you’ll want a hard, flat
surface – which means a patio,
decking, some lawn or a paved
or gravelled courtyard-style
area - but don’t instinctively
plump for a rectangle of paving
outside your patio doors;
sketch out several alternative
ideas. Try a circular area or
a couple of offset lozengeshaped flat surfaces; these
open up all sorts of interesting
shapes round the edges of the
garden that you can use as
planting pockets – which look
so much more interesting.

Maybe you like sitting out
late, or entertaining in the
garden, in which case a stylish
outbuilding surrounded by
a predominately evergreen
ground cover scheme with
waving grass heads, with subtle
LED lighting (which uses less
electricity than usual) could be
the basis for your scheme.
Or if your main passion is for
plants and you don’t have to
cater for small children or dogs,
the way to pack lots of seasonal
attractions into a small space
is by designing yourself an
intricate walk-through garden,
with paths winding through
carpets of plants to make a
Lilliputian landscape based
on rock plants, dwarf shrubs
and miniature bulbs, chosen to

provide a succession of flowers
throughout the year. A formal
flower garden or a herb garden
looks stunning in a small space,
but if you want a fashionable
but very low-maintenance look
then plump for an ankle-length
wildflower lawn containing a
sprinkling of speedwell, violets,
primroses and clovers, and
add one or two ‘cameo groups’
of architectural plants such as
bamboo, phormium or fatsia
with a trendy bench, arbour
or outdoor ornament to give
it a designer ‘edge’. Apart
from mowing every couple of
weeks, there’s no upkeep.
Finding suitable ingredients is
no problem today since garden
centres and plant breeders
are increasingly catering for

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