Updated on January 4th, 2025 Posted In: Garden Trends & Design
Author: Alexandra Campbell

Why a successful small garden needs a big idea

A small garden or backyard needs a big idea.

You can let a larger outdoor space evolve. And by ‘larger’ I mean any garden more than about 80ft (25m) long.

A small garden with a big ‘exotic’ idea – this purple bench and tree fern in a London courtyard designed by Paul Thompson-MacArthur.

All the most successful small gardens I’ve seen recently have one strong idea behind them. In a small space, you can see everything at once, so it’s important that it all looks good together.

This principle applies regardless of what shape your outdoor space is. However, many small gardens or patios are wider than they are long. See here for general tips on a shallow wide garden.

If you’re looking for a ‘big idea’, you could choose a specific garden style. See 12 Garden Style Ideas or Which Garden Style is Right For You?

But if you have a very small patio, some well-known garden styles may not work. So here are the three successful small space garden ideas to inspire you.

The plant-lover’s garden

After visiting Philip Oostenbrink’s garden (open once a year for the NGS), I realised that a small outside space is a wonderful display area for unusual plants. As the plants are so close to you, you can really appreciate the differences in leaf shape and colour.

Wonderful leaf contrasts in Philip’s backyard- the slim palm-like leaves of Begonia luxurians contrast with the darker Persicaria ‘Red Door’ and the citrus green of Hakonechloa macra (Philip holds a National Collection of Hakonechloas). In the foreground is a rare variegated form of ground elder (in a pot).

Also, in a small space, there’s no need to plant in threes or drifts. One of each specimen will look just fine in a courtyard, terrace or patio garden. Whereas if you dot lots of different single plants around a larger garden, everything can end up looking incoherent.

Tree fern, Canna ‘Durban’ and other foliage plants in Philip’s garden.

‘It’s all about the foliage for me,’ says Philip. He is Head Gardener at Walmer Castle, where he’s creating a jungle theme in the moat. And as Chairman of the Kent division of Plant Heritage, he is passionate about unusual plants. His small backyard (around 35ftx15ft) is bursting with fascinating leaves, and follows a jungle theme.

Philip is also the author of The Jungle Garden, a book which ‘takes the houseplant look outside’. You can read more about his principles of how to create a jungle garden here.

Most of the plants in Philip’s garden are chosen for their foliage, but he also adds dash of brilliant colour from dahlias. Here Dahlia ‘Happy Days’ and Ricinus communis make Philip’s front garden stand out from all its neighbours.

Urban jungle garden

As well as a ‘plantsman’s garden’, Philip also defines his theme as ‘urban jungle’. That’s a good look for a small outside space, because it’s relatively easy to get the look of a jungle packed with different layers of plants. ‘A jungle feels quite enclosed when you’re in it,’ says Philip.

The layers of plants start with a tree (see here for how to choose a tree for a small garden). Then you plant large plants, smaller plants, ground cover plants and pots, all crowded together like the photo below.

Philip adds splashes of colour with bedding plants, but he is really interested in the unusual plants especially those with large leaves like the Tree Foxglove (Paulownia tomentosa) on the top at the right.

Tree dandelion (Sonchus canariensis) – one of the fascinating exotic leaf shapes in Philip’s backyard.

And for more exotic garden inspiration, Steven Edney and Lou Dowle’s tropical garden is nearby and also opens for the NGS.

Derek Jarman coastal theme

There are a number of small gardens open for Faversham Open Gardens & Garden Market Day (held on the last Sunday in June every year). See the NGS handbook for details. One of the most popular gardens that has opened in the past is this Derek Jarman-inspired garden.

Guy Felton painted the fence black to echo the fishermen’s huts nearby in Faversham harbour and also at Dungeness.

The garden belongs Guy Felton and his wife. He is a retired architect so he has a keen eye. When they bought the house, there was just a thin strip of lawn bordered by two narrow beds. It’s around 15ft (4.5m) wide at its widest, but tapers down to around 12ft. And it’s around 35ft (10.5m) long.

‘There didn’t seem any point in mowing such a tiny strip of lawn,’ he said. So they replaced it all with shingle, which makes the garden look wider and lighter. The plants grow out of the shingle. So there is no separation between garden beds and lawn, shingle or pavers.

Raised beds, grasses and ‘found objects’ such as shells and broken china all convey a beach-comber ‘Derek Jarman’ look.

Faversham harbour is nearby, and when Guy was walking around the boatyard, he spotted an old wooden yacht rudder. It was about to be put on the bonfire, but the owner said Guy could have it. It now stands halfway down the garden ‘dividing up the space’, and looks like a piece of garden sculpture.

Garden sculpture or an old yacht rudder? There’s a pretty seating area behind.

Exotic easy-care courtyard

This is the smallest garden in this post. It is around 15ft x 15ft (4.5m x 4.5m) and belongs to my friend, Amanda. This is a very limited space, so she has kept it simple. But it’s also dramatic!

She picked ‘exotic’ as her theme, and asked garden designer, Paul Thompson-McArthur to make it work. (She says it was my idea, but I’m not sure…I think it just came up when we were all talking.)

Paul Thompson-McArthur kept this exotic look simple, with a few distinctive plants and brick paving which echoes the garden walls.

The back of Amanda’s kitchen is one long glass door, which rolls back, so her garden is on view all year round. ‘Exotic’ has a long season of interest, because it’s based on leaf shapes. In the winter, the two benches both look like garden sculpture, and there is a distinctive piece by Tom Stogdon, too.

Amanda’s backyard from the kitchen – it’s on view all year round, but the purple bench is a good focal point. The whole of her outside space is like a work of art.

Amanda’s tip for small gardens – choose a chair that is quite ‘transparent’. The sculpture is by Tom Stogdon.

The details that make all the difference…

In a small garden, everything can be seen, so Amanda wanted all the detail to be right. She asked Paul to source nails and wires that looked as if they could have been there forever.

I love these rusted nails and wires set into the wall to support climbers or vines. Amanda’s house is Georgian, so touches like this give the garden a feeling of having been there for years.

Another tip from Amanda is to remember the garden when you’re having any work done in the house. She had her kitchen renovated, which would have been the ideal time to run an automatic irrigation system out into the courtyard. ‘But I did the garden after the house, by which time the kitchen floor had been laid over the piping, and it really wasn’t feasible to take it up again.’

An automatic watering system, by the way, makes alot of sense in any garden. It’ll keep your plants alive, especially if you are away alot, and it’s also a good use of water.

What kind of small garden is easiest to maintain?

If you have a small backyard you should usually avoid having either a lawn or artificial grass. It’s difficult to keep a very small patch of lawn grass looking good.

And artificial grass will need cleaning and other maintenance. It can also be too hot to touch when in direct sun on very hot days.

The easiest paving surfaces to maintain are brick, stone and concrete.

But if you pave over a small garden space completely, you may have problems with water run-off. When land is paved over, all the water rushes into the drainage system. It can overload and flood. If you have at least some planting beds, some water will soak in.

Plants growing in the earth always need less care than plants in pots. Planters need regular watering and fertilisers.

If you add all that together, the easiest small garden will have brick, stone or concrete paving with planting beds set into it. In Amanda’s small backyard, there are two corner beds. Each has a large distinctive plant. There is a climbing plant growing up trellis wires at the back and a strip of garden border at the front.

All gardens – like houses – need some maintenance. But Amanda’s garden has been designed so that she can leave it when she travels.

Amanda’s plants have distinctive shapes and are chosen mainly for their foliage interest. Plants with flowers always need more care because of the dead-heading. So even the plants are less work!

It’s green, attractive and needs very little care.

More ideas for your outside space

If you’re looking for that one word or big idea as a starting point, then check this list of top 12 garden styles.  And there are 10 more garden style ideas here.

You’ll find more successful small gardens and small backyards in these posts: 15 easy affordable ideas for town gardens, 8 steps to the long thin garden of your dreams, and 6 Effective Tips to Narrow Town Garden Success.

For general garden design principles for both smaller and larger gardens, don’t miss Pollyanna Wilkinson’s advice in How to Design Your Garden (if you’re not a garden designer.) And there is super-helpful information from Charlotte Rowe, too, in 5 top garden design tips (plus 2 common mistakes to avoid.)

And if you’re on a budget but you aren’t very good at DIY, then don’t miss the post on how Jo Rutherford transformed her garden with easy budget tips.

Many small gardens or patios are paved over. But you can create a garden in pots. See Dan Cooper’s advice on how to group pots to make them look like a border. And also this amazing rented garden in pots!

See more of the gardens in video

You can see more of Philip’s garden in this video, plus another look at the other two small gardens and more small garden ideas.

Pin to remember why a small backyard needs a big idea

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