Moving from decent garden to very small one...help please!

[FuzzyPuffling]

Help and ideas needed please.

I am (hopefully) moving in the next couple of months from a rural detached house (with a sea view!) to an urban terrace with a small garden. On the whole, this is a good thing for many reasons, but the little garden (or largish courtyard, if you prefer) will be a challenge.

It currently has a (south facing) small bit of decking, a paved side return, one overgrown border and a patch of astroturf (which I want to replace with proper grass - I cannot bear the thought I will never feel grass under my bare feet again). It's probably about 30' long in total.

I've got several plants which I will be transporting in pots, ready to plant out (roses, clematis, hellebores, hydrangeas etc) as well as an apple tree, a cherry tree and three small olive trees in big pots.

I need some thoughts on design and ideas to work on. I'd like a green oasis, which is also cat friendly.

Oh and a "low maintenance" garden in anathema to me....I LOVE gardening!

So pleased you’ll replace the awful Astro with real grass. I would perhaps sit in the garden a bit and work out where neighbours views are into your garden and also where you’d like to have shade and then think about taller screening trees. Wildflowers if you can and perhaps some planters up on the fences for strawberries/ winter flowers etc ?

You're absolutely right Tickly. One thing about plants in pots is that I can move them around until I'm happy with them.

I'd quite like to move away from the "square garden with plants round the edge" , but will need room for my washing line amongst all this! Maybe a diagonal lawn?

I think the hydrangeas might go in the front garden (the usual tiny patch to the right of the tiled path) as it's shade there. Also my ferns and hostas will be happier there.

I follow on FB - this Guy he started off with this with this and turned it into this

and has turned it into an absolute oasis and it looks fantastic. He is driven by helping an attracting wildlife and has even put a 'stream' in - there are videos of that there too - have a look for ideas, but it just shows what you can achieve with a small garden.

Ooh - good one furball. It IS possible!

Somewhere on here a few months back was a thread on small gardens and one poster put on pictures of their own courtyard garden and is was absolutely stunning!

Might be worth a flick bavk through to see if you can find it?

Kate Bradbury has a small garden in Brighton, I think, and she has made it amazing for wildlife.

Or you could go full tropical, there have been some great examples of those in small urban gardens on GW over the years.

Had a flick back but not come across it yet - will keep trying.

I did think "tropical" as it does seem a popular look for small gardens on GW, but I am more of a cottage gardener style wise (and also knowledge wise).

Think about the light. I found my grass couldn't survive, so made smaller terraces with very deep beds around the edge. I have two stone circles, with deep planting around them. I have a plum, blackcurrants, red currants, white currants, rhubarb, raspberries. A fig that's not doing brilliantly at the moment. Ivy covering a wall. I have blackbirds that nest in a Chilean potato vine. Blue tits. A shady prickly border with ferns that's stopping all out war between my dog and next door's!

In between it all I have hellebores, lilies, various herb pots, camellia, magnolia, some trailing petunia... I'm trying to get more flowers in throughout the year. Forget me nots are fabulous, and toadflax, a few poppies, lots of aquilegia. But flowers is what I need to focus on at the moment.

No point trying tomatoes or strawberries.

You can get a lot in! But check the light.

Thank you, all of you for lovely suggestions and for not saying "why the heck are you moving?".

My great aunt had a courtyard garden and it was always magical. She had discrete mirrors set into the walls that made glimpses of it look double in size. She grew climbing roses that were abundant but left room for planting in pots. I fondly remember it being a very special and private space.

Is this the kind of look you like? I have an ancient book called 'small gardens and back yards' by David Stevens which has some great looking gardens in it. Having moved from a small garden to a big one some 10 years ago what I miss is that with the small garden there was time to get it looking all perfect.

I'm also going for climbers, particularly since the garden is mostly walled. When there's little ground space, upwards is the way to go.
Love that photo notanicepersonapparently ( great user name!). That's the sort of thing, but with more grass. After the heat of the past few days, just paving would be hot as hell.

Yes I’m a cottage garden gardener as well, despite having lived in the tropics. Good luck with your new garden, exciting times.

My DH bought me a beautiful obelisk for my sweet peas last Christmas. That needs a special place!

I agree that you need to think about height / the 3D-effect. Blur the edges of the garden so it's no so obvious where your domain ends. Lead the eye upwards and outwards.
Counter-intuitively, use large or large-leafed plants (it's why people go tropical). Small plants will only exaggerate the smallness of the garden. Similarly, use large paving slabs, large rocks, etc.
Make things multi-purpose eg a shed can be storage, a support for a climbing plant and have a mirror/false-window to create reflections.

Lovely ideas here. Our garden is in three ‘rooms’, the first being a courtyard. Apart from the planting in pots, we have a traditional style fountain that works on solar energy. It would be lovely to incorporate a water feature.
Also have a look on Pinterest for small garden courtyard ideas.

I had this when I moved last year. I had a huge 140ft west facing garden now have a much smaller garden. I hate gravel but had loads of the stuff so worked with it (had a quote of 11k to pave it and couldn't afford it. I have used lots of pots and planted climbers and re-turfed the small grasses area.

It's not perfect by any means but I added a small deck and spent minimal money. Hopefully once mature it will be much better.

Will paint the deck I think when I can decide on colour and have planted climbers to the rear wall of the house which you can't see. Very low maintenance and the pots are easy to work with. Good luck with yours

30ft is a normal suburban garden size - don’t be too disheartened.

It's a decent size for a garden - I moved from just a back yard to a garden about the size of yours. In the back yard I managed a greenhouse, a huge raised bed with trees in it, seating area to eat and sit in the sun, huband's beloved huge gas BBQ and space for him to operate it, trees in pots, veg in pots and lots of flowers in a cottage garden style.

The hardest thing was not having somewhere to put things while they were in their 'off season'.

So now I'm in a 30 foot garden I'm luxuriating in the space.

Think storage, seating area, more storage.

Ah, you're all so positive - thank you!
TangoWhisky - yours is looking brilliant!

I had a tiny courtyard garden when I first got into gardening and I loved it! My suggestions would be lots of alpines in a gravel path if you have one, espaliered fruit trees which can be used to form walls for different sections, different height raised beds- with a seating area built in. We had small children at the time and DH built a deck and then sunk a sandpit into it with a lid that was flush with (and matched) the deck. If we had stayed with older kids I think I would have repurposed it for storing tools etc.

In our new house we’ve built a pond into a wall- that could also work in a small garden.

@picklemewalnuts

Re your fig - just wondered whether or not it's roots have free rein in the ground or whether their run is constricted in some way (in the ground). I believe they do better when constricted. I planted a fig in the ground a couple of gardens ago. Lined the hole with old pavers to create a box.