Small Garden Ideas - Free Small Garden Design Plan

DKrunner | Oct 17, 2010 |

0 Comments | Rating: 0

If you love to garden but you don't have a lot of extra space, don't worry! You can still have a very appealing garden; you just need to look specifically for small garden plans that will fit neatly into the space that you have to work with. In fact, smaller areas can be even more fun to fill because you can populate a small garden design much faster and cheaper than you can a large, vast yard. Here are some small garden ideas that will help you get started.

Think of the overall look and style that you want from your small garden design ideas.
Are you looking for a small themed garden? For example, are you trying to pull off a tropical garden or a native garden? Are you favoring small garden designs that have lots of wavering grasses or do you like thick, full evergreens? Having a vague idea of what you want your garden design to look like is really very helpful because it gives you a little assistance in knowing just where to start!

What to consider on your long list of small garden ideas

Consider the size of the plants that you want in your small garden design.
You may buy a plant that's only 6 inches tall, not realizing that it grows quickly into a 10 foot by 10 foot monstrosity of a hedge! To avoid this possible dilemma, always look to see what the expected growth rate and full size is of a plant that you are considering for addition into your small garden plan. This is easy enough, just be sure to read the tag that nearly all plants have on them. Consider the expected dimensions of any plant before you buy it for your small garden layout; you will be glad that you took the time to do it years from now! Large plants are not a thing to avoid entirely, actually, as attentive pruning and the right placement of the plants within the small garden idea can work just fine. Just be sure to educate yourself from the get go so that you will have a good idea of what it's going to take to keep your small garden looking nice.

Plan for layers within your small garden design relative to the size of the plants you choose.
This is a fun one; thinking ahead about the maximum growth of a plant in order to layer it properly within the scale of the small garden design. Larger plants should clearly be in the "back" portion of a small garden idea, so that they do not crowd out or visibly block the flowers and ground cover that you may eventually opt for. This part of the small garden design plan is just like school pictures back when you were in elementary school; tall ones in the back, shorties in the front! Actually, if you like; there are sloped small garden ideas that are very attractive. You can build a mound at any point in the small garden layout that you like; just be aware that in doing so it will serve as a bit of a center or axis for the garden layout.

Think about what colors you want in your small garden layout.
This variable is arguably the most fun to plan! Even if your garden is not going to have a single flower in it, you are still looking at choosing between a wide spectrum of shades of green, brown, red, and yellow. For example, there are lime and yellow leaved bushes, and there are deep, nearly black shades of dramatic grasses. There are evergreen bushes that stay a brown/green all year long, and then sprout hot, fiery red in the spring. If you are doing flowers and bulbs in your small garden, you are going to be able to add a splash of other color (purples, blues, oranges, etc) each spring. The colors that you fill your small garden with will be what makes it interesting, so have fun with this piece.

Consider the shape of your small garden layout.
If you are looking for small garden ideas because of a lack of space, a fun way to counter the lack of gardening room is to create a garden layout that is shaped in a unique way. For example, you can create a round garden layout, or a pool shaped wave-like small garden design. Because it's small, you wont have a hard time filling it, and it wont be obtrusive in the rest of your yard.

Consider texture and shape of the plants in your small garden plan.
Like color, the shape and texture of the plants that you use for your small garden design are an important component of the way that the final garden will look. Ways to add interesting shape to your small garden are using a combination of all kinds of plants, trees, and bushes. For example, flowing grasses and rounded hedges flatter one another. Or, small trees (think a mini Japanese maple) with flowering ground cover makes the most of a garden with limited space.

Make sure to choose an evergreen "base" for your small garden plan.
If you have harsh winters where everything in the garden dies back, you will want to make sure and choose a "base" for your garden that is evergreen. This way, there will be no point in the year where the garden is totally barren. If you live somewhere cold enough that this applies, simple choose evergreen bushes, shrubs, and trees when choosing your larger pieces of greenery for the small garden design.

Consider flowers; edibles, bulbs, fragrance, and cut flower gardens.
If you think that you want a cut flower garden or at least a splash of color out in your small garden design each spring, be open to bulbs, annuals, and perennials. It's nice to be able to run out to the garden and come back with a fistful of flowers; a few flowering plants scattered along the edge of a small garden design will do the trick.