Make your small garden look spacious
When boundaries around a small space are obvious they make the space appear even smaller. If fences or walls surround your garden you can obscure them with trees, shrubs, or vines. Use lots of greenery that will blur the sharp distinction between your garden and neighbouring properties.
Even with a visible boundary you can soften the effect of it by implying that more lies beyond it. You might construct a path that disappears around a bend near the edge of the garden. Though the path may actually end just out of sight behind shrubbery, it will still seem to lead to another part of the garden that can't be immediately seen.
Borrow a Japanese technique that expands the borders of your garden by visually incorporating attractive scenery or structures from next door or in the distance into your garden plan. If a large tree edges onto your garden plant small trees in front of it so the entire planting appears to belong to your garden. If there is a handsome mass of shrubbery near your property include it in your design. Or if there is a distant vista, rolling hills or a grove of trees, see if you can frame them from your garden.
Developing a garden that has sense of mystery and anticipation can make the space seem bigger. Again borrowing from the Japanese, conceal parts of your garden from initial viewing, then gradually reveal them. For example, shrubs might conceal part of a view a water feature or a distant panorama from the house or patio. Only beyond the shrub screen is the entire view revealed. This technique makes it impossible to judge the extent of your garden at a first glance.
Straight lines often lead the eye far too quickly to the end of the garden, making the space seem smaller. But curved or rounded lines add a meandering, expansive quality to even the smallest garden. Even a bend in an otherwise straight path slows down the eye and diverts attention away from the garden's boundaries.
Curved lines in your garden should be sweeping, not wiggly or tentative. Use C or S-shaped curves to form paths, beds and other garden elements; such curves make bold and forceful design statements.
Cool colours appear to retreat into the background therefore they help create an illusion of greater space. The same goes for fine textures, in plant or structures, a fine texture makes them appear to recede. For example, choose narrow fence boards rather than wide ones; for pavement, use bricks or cobbles instead of large flagstones.
If a small garden looks deep, if it seems to extend far away from the house, it will feel more spacious. To create a feeling of depth in your garden, begin with providing a route through it. A garden that can't be strolled through and viewed from different angles looks flat and two-dimensional.
By arranging plants in certain ways you can also add depth. At the outer edges of your garden, mass vines, small trees and shrubs of different shapes, heights, textures and shades of green. Such an irregular border produces a greater sensation of depth than does a solid, unadorned fence or uniform hedge.
Placing one row of plants in front of another at the periphery called double-planting is also effective. The greenery appears to go back farther than it really does. There is room for double-planting in most small gardens if you choose plants of suitable size and growth.
You can emphasize the feeling of depth by placing light-coloured or variegated plants in front of darker green ones. Position airy shrubs or small trees in front of denser, darker plants so that you see the background only through a lacy foliage screen. Instead of covering a wall with vines, add dimension by planting a few tall shrubs in front of it as well. Grow clematis with the vine so you also have a delicious flowering display on your walls.
Really be daring and use a strategically placed mirror that will reflect plants and structures producing an image that looks like an extension of the garden.
A mural is another good illusion; painted on a wall or fence, it can make the garden seem larger by providing an image that's engrossing to view. Garden boundaries will recede even farther if the background is painted so that it appears to dwindle into the distance.
As you can see there are many creative ways to make that small garden of yours have space, depth and allure.
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