How to Best Utilize the Space in Your Garden

No matter how big our gardens are, we always want them to be bigger. If the size of your garden doesn’t match the size of your horticultural ambitions, don’t worry. Here are a few ways you can fully utilize every inch of your plot.

Use Height

Even small gardens have a lot of vertical space. Fences, garages, walls—you can put all of this to good use. You use the walls in your house for cupboards, mirrors, and pictures, so why not do the same with the ones in your garden?

You can attach planters to fences or walls. To adorn high spaces, you can use tremendous trailers such as the Mc Daniel’s Cushion or creepers such as Star Jasmine. To help them reach the skies, all you need to do is secure a trellis or mesh to the wall.

You can also train vines to grow vertically. Lovely plants you can train to grow upwards include grapevines, kiwi fruits, and a variety of climbing squashes, peas, beans, and vining tomatoes. So that the plants will stay up, you need to make sure the supports are sturdy enough.

Compartmentalize

Use walls of foliage, trellis, or bamboo screens to divide your garden into sections. By doing so, you can create secret hideaways in the garden. You can decorate each area with different furniture and plants.

To soften the appearance of the barriers, you can grow ornamental grasses. At the lower levels, they will appear to give your divided garden more depth.

Mexican Feather Grass and Elijah Blue are excellent choices. An arch is also a great way to create separate garden areas, even if the space is small.

Pave Diagonally

When it comes to smaller gardens, every surface counts. To make the best use of the space you have, opt for attractive hard surfacing and paths.

Natural stone is a great option, but avoid laying the paving squarely. To give the illusion of a bigger garden, you can lay slabs in a diamond pattern.

If you want to make use of broken or mixed slabs, you can lay them in a haphazard manner—also known as crazy paving. Like diagonal paving, crazy paving will also make your garden appear larger.

For the same reasons, it’s best to use light-colored slabs. This way, you can give your garden a contemporary look and open it up at the same time.

Use Containers

Pots are great because you can move them around or change them easily. This is especially handy if you have limited space. They allow you to revamp your garden in just a few minutes.

Containers and pots will make your garden easier to maintain, and they will keep everything flexible. You can use containers for flowering bedding plants or small trees.

You can also use them to grow veggies and fruit. To add healthy produce to your diet, plant carrots, radishes, chilies, peppers, lettuce, beans, and tomatoes.

You can also make use of hanging baskets. If you position them right, they will catch valuable sunlight. You can even create your own eye-catching containers by upcycling everyday objects.

Add Trees

Just one tree can do quite a lot for a small garden. Trees will give you privacy and lend some height to your garden.

It’s best to plant cherry, plum, or some other canopy tree. It doesn’t take up much space on the ground even though it comes with a lush, leafy roof.

Planning ornamental trees can also be a good idea. You can transform your little garden into a beautiful Mediterranean paradise by planting olive trees.

Choose High-Value Crops

You can maximize the overall productivity of your garden by planting high-yielding or high-value crops.

For instance, you can get several harvests from chard by repeatedly cutting the plant over a longer period. And, in the summertime, tomatoes will give you lots of fruits.

You can sow, grow, and pick more than a few generations of radishes in just one season. If you want to harvest them early, you can plant them between slow-growing crops. Zucchini and runner beans are also notoriously prolific.

Keep it Bright

 You can make your garden appear bigger and lighter by adding some color to it. And planting bright flowers is the easiest way to do that. Mountain Gold, Irish Eyes, and other light-yellow or golden flowers are ideal for brightening up dark patches.

As a general rule, dark yellows, reds, and other hot colors make a garden feel more intimate. White, blue, light-purple, and other cool-colored flowers recede the field of vision, making the space appear bigger.

Pick Out Furniture Wisely

Furniture can help you maximize the space in your garden, but it can just as easily clutter it. For instance, it’s better to go with a bistro table and chairs instead of bulky seating or large benches.

This type of furniture doesn’t take up much space, and it provides a stylish European aesthetic to any garden. Such furniture is ideal for basking in the morning sun while having a breakfast of croissants and orange juice.

Attract Wildlife

Birds, hedgehogs, and bees are allies to any gardener. These creatures don’t serve just to look cute while hanging around in your garden. They will also help you keep pests under control.

You can encourage them to come to your garden by setting up roosting pouches, feeding stations, bird boxes, and bee hotels.

Make sure to plan the favorite flowers of bees and butterflies. These include Daisy, Goldenrod, Dahlia, Coneflower, and Butterfly Bush. These lovely insects will bring even more color to your garden.

Mix up Plants

Many gardeners that are just starting out think that they need to plant herbs, fruits, and vegetables separately. This isn’t so easy to do if you have a small garden, and you really don’t have to do it.

In fact, not only planting different types of plants separately isn’t necessary, but there are some benefits to mixing things up a bit. Pests will have a hard time honing in on specific crops if you plant flowers and vegetables together.

Moreover, there will always be beneficial insects in your garden if you plant flowers, fruits, and veggies together. They will come because of the flowers, but they will pollinate your fruits and vegetables as well.