Help with Tiny patio/dark London brick needed

[TheworldsTiniestPatio]

So I am buying somewhere with the worlds tiniest patio. The front door and steps is in this patio (pic enclosed). I'm painting the front door a vibrant pink with grey surround.

I WAS going to paint all the walls a deep maroon on the bottom and a pinky grey above. Every wall apart from the one to the right of the front door as it's too high to paint as I'd want to follow the line at the height of the door which is about 15 feet off the ground.

I'm going to do a vertical garden of pouches and grow flowers/strawberries down the wall as well as very narrow planters all the way round the patio. So the wall to the right of the front door will have green pouches on it, about 15 of them (they're a metre square)

The rear of the patio is the widest, about ten feet wide so I will need to put as narrow a two outdoor sofas as I can find.

I'm not that keen on maroon and a grey pink. I prefer blues and wanted this years colour of the year on the walls (denim blue) but I'm worried that it would look weird with the bright pink front door. I really want the bright pink door.

None of this can be seen from the street so I don't have to worry about others 'taste' or fitting in. Does anyone have any ideas?

[TheworldsTiniestPatio]

This is the front of the patio and the rear of the patio (where I want to create a seating area)

[aircooled]

You're going to paint over that lovely mellow London brick? That's giving yourself maintenance issues for years to come. Aren't the walls going to be covered by these pouches anyway? This sounds like an interior design dilemma but transferred outside - most gardeners would have a neutral background and let the plants do the talking.

Why not keep the characterful old walls as they are to hold the pouches and introduce some colour with some groovy outdoor furniture, maybe linking to the pink front door?

[AndShesGone]

It does sound like an interior design problem you're quite right

What's not in the shot is that the house is 4 stories high so there's a lot of that lovely brick and there's a very large high wall of it in the 'seating' area so it feels quite dark. Its in an L shape there so it's two high sides of the brick.

I was thinking about going for the black pouches rather than the green so that the wall colour between the pouches (and above and below) can be seen. Rather than the green which is really too bright.

I want to edge it all round with very high planters (at least 70cm tall) as my dog would want to dig in the pots. I'm struggling to find any that high.

What colour would you paint the walls if you were going to?

[AndShesGone]

I've given up 2 allotments and a 200 foot garden to move to this tiny garden so I want to make the most of every inch

[Artandco]

That doesn't look that tiny. It's big enough for a nice little bistro seating set and small
BBQ and plants.

I wouldn't paint those walls either. Check, but if it's in London it's likely the outsids is restricted on what you can do to old bricks also

I would:
1)Add a new paved floor around back and down the side to the front steps. Nice chunky old flagstone type thing. But get non slip for rain
2) add thin tall planter running whole way down thin alleyway. Add tall plants inside
(Look on Pinterest)

[AndShesGone]

I'm totally struggling to find very narrow depth and very tall planters.

I've had it written into the lease I can paint the walls any colour. I need to paint that horrible wooden fence bit at the top as it's not treated, any ideas for that ?

Wondering if maybe I did it in bright pink to match the door ?

[shovetheholly]

Why go to all the expense and trouble of painting that lovely brick when you can cover it with climbers? They will break up the uniformity, and give you leaves, flowers and potentially even fruit! It looks pretty sheltered, so I bet you could grow some really exotic things.

Be careful with the pouches - they dry out very quickly, esp in areas of the country where the weather is warm. You may be better off with pots. You could even build raised beds out of sleepers, which would give you adequate soil depth for climbers.

If weight is an issue, there are lighters substrates you can use, e.g. those for green roofs, but these will affect what you can and can't grow.

[AndShesGone]

I wish I could do raised beds but sleepers are pretty much the depth of the actual bed, I want narrow enough pots that I can have them both sides of the patio. It thins to about 4 foot next to the door in the passageway. I think I want really thin sided pots like zinc?

I'm going to do an automatic watering system in the pouches and the pots. There's so little rain here it's going to need it.

[shovetheholly]

This is stating the obvious, so apologies - but if you do a deeper raised bed at the wider part, and you plant something like a fairly large climber that can be trained horizontally, rather than vertically, you can still have green on at least one of the walls! From those photos, I think you might have more space than you perhaps realise: hard landscaping like brick and pavement tends to make spaces look smaller. For example, if you put a decent depth of raised bed planter by the righthand wall by your ?back door steps (the ones that go down) where the area is wider, you could train a climber along the thinner part of the walkway.

I would maybe introduce colour using things like wall decorations and wall-hanging pots - vintage advertisements, in particular, might look really nice and would give you a real zing of colour without having to paint that brick.

Long tom pots are great for confined spaces!

[HowardMoonsJazzTrumpet]

Some tall and narrow pots here

andshesgone, are you the OP with an NC fail?