If you have a small garden, you need to plan carefully to ensure it meets your individual needs, says TV gardening expert Alan Titchmarsh, whose new book, Small Gardens, offers a wealth of tips on how to make the most of even the tiniest plot.“Keep it simple,” he advises.
“You can make it interesting without it being fussy. Have good clean lines and interesting angles.
“Consider if it’s worth having a lawn at all. Bear in mind if it’s going to be big enough to be able to sit on and to be able to mow. Can you manoeuvre a lawn mower around it and easily dispose of the clippings? If the answer’s no to all of this, then go for a different surface, whether it’s gravel or paving or decking.”
Seating is likely to be the biggest priority, he observes.
“Look at your plot to find out where the path of the sun is because the most important thing for most people in the garden is where they’re going to sit.
“Work out the place that will be most convenient, whether you want to sit in the sun or the shade. You may need your patio to be at the bottom of the garden rather than next to the house.
“Always make the seating area bigger than you think you’ll need because once you put a table and four chairs out there and you’ve pulled them out you don’t want to be falling over the edge.”
There are ways to make a small garden look bigger, he adds.
Hiding your boundary with plants can increase the sense of space, while placing a small statue at the end of a narrow path will make the distance seem greater because your eyes want to believe the statue is life size.
“Allow yourself some space. Gaps in an enclosed space encourage you to look through them into the space beyond, while looking from an open area into a densely planted one can give a sense of infinity.
“A blend of open and enclosed spaces will enable you to blur the boundaries of your plot and make your small garden seem more spacious.”
Focal points are also important and a few large features are better than many small ones in a small space, says Titchmarsh.
“Don’t think that because you’ve got a small garden you can’t have anything of stature. Tall plants are fine as long as they’re not spreading out too much or shading the garden or filling it with lots of foliage.
“Tall plants draw your eye up and out into the world beyond and help to link the land with the sky.”
Small trees, neat evergreens and shrubs which can be pruned to appear tree-like in outline are perfect structural plants for small gardens.
Colour won’t need to be so prevalent in a small plot.
“You’ll need less colour in a smaller garden. What’s more important is structure, form and perspective. I like to use evergreens because even in a tiny garden it gives it structure in winter.
“Highlight the colour by giving it a good green background with foliage. Use colour more sparingly and it can still be effective.”
Just because you have a small garden doesn’t mean you always have to go for dwarf plants, he adds.
“Don’t feel that everything has to be squat, or you’ll end up with what looks like a tray of scones. Allow yourself one, two or three architectural plants.”
Water is also a good design feature to bring into a small garden because the reflective surface anchors the sky and allows light into your garden.
“The reflective powers of a plain sheet of water are great and you can make a rill (formal canal of water) or a stream in the tiniest of gardens and it’s wonderful in bringing light in.”
* Alan Titchmarsh How To Garden series: Small Gardens; Growing Bulbs; Wildlife; Pests And Problems, Roses; Small Gardens, published by BBC Books, priced £6.99 each. Available now.
Best of the bunch – Pansy (Viola)
Their velvety blooms in a vast range of colours brighten up spring pots and borders, while the smaller violas provide a more subtle burst of colour in late spring and throughout the summer.
Pretty varieties include V. ‘Jackanapes’, which has bicoloured flowers in deep maroon purple and bright yellow at the base, with purple streaks in the centre, and V. x Wittrockiana in the Ultima Series, which is compact, vigorous and heavy-blooming with medium-sized flowers.
They begin to flower in winter and continue through spring, in an exhaustive range of beautiful colours. Pansies, or violas, prefer a sunny site in fertile, well-drained soil.
Good enough to eat – Globe artichoke
Not only are they delicious when cooked and dipped in vinaigrette, but they also are a stunning structural plant, growing to around 1.5m high with thistle-like arching silvery leaves and ball-like heads, which are removed for cooking.
Artichokes need particular conditions to thrive – good soil, regular watering and feeding and frost protection.
The best way is to start with offsets, available from nurseries, which are rooted suckers around 25cm long with roots attached. Plant them in a light or loamy, well-drained soil in a sunny, sheltered position in rows 90cm (3ft) apart and allowing 90cm (3ft) between the plants. Compost or well-rotted manure should have been added to the soil the previous autumn and then add a general purpose fertiliser a week or two before planting.
Keep the plants well watered, especially during dry periods in the summer, and apply a mulch around the stems in May.
Don’t harvest the artichokes the first year. Cut off the small heads which may develop in the first year to allow the plant to build up strength to produce a better harvest the following year.
The main head at the end of the stems and a number of smaller heads on lateral shoots can be harvested around August, before the flower heads have opened.
Three ways to… Select a greenhouse
1. Check that any timbers which might be used in the construction have been treated, to retain their colour and increase longevity.
2. Size matters. The minimum size for easy gardening should be around 1.4m x 1.8m (8 x 6ft).
3. If you have children, it may be worth paying extra for toughened safety glass.
What to do this week
* Add a general fertiliser such as blood, fish and bone to your borders, rake it in and then mulch it with compost or bark and, if it hasn’t rained, water it in.
* Prune spring-flowering shrubs which are fading, such as forsythia.
* Continue to plant summer-flowering bulbs.
* Keep transplanted flowers well watered during dry spells.
* Prick out seedlings and pot them on.
* Repot container plants which have outgrown their space into larger pots with fresh compost.
* Save moisture by putting saucers under containers.
* Put brassica collars around cabbages and cauliflowers to deter cabbage root fly.
* Erect low screens around carrots to keep carrot fly at bay.
* Ventilate the greenhouse on sunny days to stop the build-up of pests and diseases.
* Prune plum trees.
* Deadhead naturalised bulbs to keep them healthy.
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