Choosing Plants for a Small Garden

From Marie Iannotti,
Your Guide to Gardening.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!

 

This is one of those times when gardening in a small space is not easier than conquering a large area. Part of the problem is that poorly performing plants have no where to hide. Perhaps a bigger challenge is limiting the variety of plants in your small space garden. If it seems to cruel a task, remind yourself that it's not forever. You can always dig up the astilbes you thought you had to have and trade them with a friend who has tired of her iris. Or just build another garden.

 

Design Considerations for a Small Space Garden

The difficulty in choosing plants for your garden is cutting down the list of plants you love to the list of plants you will use. This is even harder with a small garden. Try to avoid this challenge by creating a framework for plant selection, before you begin your list.

What will influence your decision

Budget Constraints: I put this first because it is something to consider in any garden design. A small space garden should cost considerably less than its larger cousins, but there is still an expense. Don’t forget to budget for any soil you must bring in or amend. If you have your heart set on expensive specimen plants, you may want to create your garden in stages, over a series of years.

Pre-existing Plants: With the exception of trees, it is usually easier to remove pre-existing plants than to design around them.

You can save the plants to incorporate into your design, move them to another area or give them to a grateful gardening friend. However there will be times when you primary interest is in complementing an existing planting, whether a favorite tree, a hedge or a row of peonies. If that is the case, you are going to have to be very strict with yourself.

• What types of plants will survive under the trees shade and over its roots?
• Will you need to remove part of the hedge to make room for the garden space?

Proportion: Small space gardens still need to have balance. The rule of thumb for garden borders is that the width be no less than 1/3 the length. But small borders tend to look better with at least a 1 to 2 ratio. A 6 foot border that is only 2 feet wide doesn’t give you much space to play with depth. 3 or even 4 feet makes the border look less like an edge. Better still, use irregular shapes with curving lines. The space itself become interesting and the size diminishes in importance.

The Basics: USDA Zone and Sun Exposure: You’ve gone through all the effort of a site analysis for a reason. To know what plants will thrive in your garden. So now it’s time to pull out that list of site conditions and see what plants suit your site. You’ll have to be tough with yourself now or you’ll be making work and regrets for yourself later. You can change your mind about color or style, but a plant that isn’t hardy in your Zone 4 garden is going to be an annual. And plants that are suffering from too little or too much sun are going to attract all kinds of problems.

Your Gardening Style: Style here can mean a preference for pastels over hot colors or a theme, such as fragrance or an actual style, like cottage or woodland gardens. You’ll have more leway here than other areas, but since your space is limited, every plant counts. You may love red poppies, but they are going to become the focal point in your pastel garden. When choosing plants for style, it helps to group your plants. This way you can see the sore thumbs. Ferns, pulmonaria and Solomen’s Seal will look lovely together. Primrose may suit the site conditions but the loud colors may be too jarring for the look of a woodland garden. Or not.

Maintenance Requirements: Since this is a small space garden, maintenance will be less intensive. But be honest with yourself about what you are willing to do. Your garden may look good initially, but many perennials need to be divided every few years or they will start to die out or perhaps squeeze out their neighbors.

Next

Technorati Tags : small+space+gardening, gardening, garden+design, small+space+garden+design