Small Garden Designs

Small gardens can be used to plant flowers, shrubs, vegetables and herbs. If lucky enough, you can even plant a tree in your garden for a nice focal point. A small garden does not require plenty of maintenance but you can still get the same feeling of accomplishment as you would with a big garden.

The first concept that any person designing a small garden needs to understand is that raised beds always make for a more vigorous crop. Raised beds can be constructed in virtually any shape imaginable so they are the perfect container for any small garden. For example an urban gardener who only has a condo balcony to work with could build raised bed planters in the corners of the balcony and a long narrow one straight down the front parallel to the railing. This design creates a lot of growing space without taking away much of floor space on the balcony.

Only trees and the length of the garden are not enough. Textures can also play a big role in increasing the length of a small garden. However you can select your texture, you may also use brick for the patio area, natural stone for the walking space and a crushed rock that differentiate with the environments for the remaining of the area.

Some sources for finding planting zone information are on the back of seed packets, in the plant description, and on the internet. This information will not only help you determine if a plant can survive in your climate range, but how early you can plant a particular plant in your location. While zone maps are not perfect, they can provide a useful start to determining the plants to use in your small garden design.

The garden needs at least six hours of sun a day, including mid-day sun, so choice of site is very important. This is not meant to be a hard-and-fast small garden design but a guide for planting a high-yield garden. Other vegetables can be substituted for those designated.Sure, having a small garden is not as grand as having acres of land devoted solely for gardening. But when it comes to setup and maintenance, a small garden is a winner. You don't need a whole lot of plants just to make the garden filled with life. You only need a couple of key elements during your start up, and you're good to go.

This gives me the ability to try new things fairly quickly in a small garden area. If it doesn't work, or if I want to try something new, I may buy some additional plants, or I might move plants from one of the other little gardens. I can add my "mini hardscapes" like rock, and move plants around in a matter of minutes. I think experimentation is one of my favorite things about this type of gardening. While on the one hand, you need to plan for the appropriate plants, on the other hand you can swap different plants in and out of a particular spot to see which works best, or just to try out a new idea.

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