1: Embrace curves (main image)
As soon as you add curves to a small garden, whether that’s with paths, flowerbeds, borders, or even retaining walls, you make the eye slow down, and you create the feeling of an area designed for adventure and discovery. This makes your garden feel at once bigger and more private, especially if those curves obscure different areas of the space from view.
2: Add mirrors
A strategically placed mirror will instantly create the illusion of extra space in a small garden. Something generously sized is often best, fixed on a side wall or fence (much better to reflect plants than the back of your house). Specially made outdoor mirrors are designed to be lighter, weather-resistant and shatterproof, so they’re a wise move, while window-effect designs can hint at a secret garden beyond. Surrounded by greenery and foliage, a mirror can brighten up a shady corner remarkably well. Always place garden mirrors in the shade, so they don’t focus sunlight in one tiny spot and cause a fire. Ensure they don’t harm birds by not hanging them too high and keeping them away from feeding stations and flight paths. In areas with bird activity, cover mirrors, add stickers or avoid altogether so birds don’t display or fight with their reflections in the breeding season, wasting precious energy resources.
3: Paint fences
There’s nothing that will visually shrink a garden more than its boundaries. If your fences are orange, they’ll be the first thing you see, so the eye immediately registers the size of the space. The same applies to fences painted white, or in bright or pale colours. The solution? Go dark! Deep forest green, black or charcoal grey make your boundaries recede, so they’re great for opening up a space, especially if they’re covered in climbers or have deep borders in front of them.
4: Plant big
It may seem counterintuitive, but dramatic plants with architectural foliage will make a small garden appear bigger. Filling a tiny garden with lots of little pots and a scattering of small, low-level plants is a bit like displaying lots of knick-knacks in your living room – the result can be fussy and claustrophobic. Keep things bold and simple by using statement plants like tree ferns, yew topiary, hostas, shuttlecock ferns and fatsias, and you’ll create a space that’s lush, green, and calming to sit in, too.
5: Divide the space into ‘rooms’
If you can’t instantly see the boundaries of your garden, the eye is tricked into believing there’s more to it. Which is why hiding areas from view makes your space appear larger. In practical terms, this can be as simple as creating a screen around your patio, using dedicated panels, sections of trellis covered in greenery or even a border full of tall, airy plants such as ornamental grasses and Verbena bonariensis. Don’t be afraid to use structures such as rose arches and pergolas to achieve the same effect.
6: Blur boundaries with climbers
Again, this simple design trick is all about hiding walls and fences from sight, so you don’t know where the garden ends and the landscape beyond begins. To clothe walls and fences in all four seasons and gain the advantage of seasonal colour, choose easy evergreen flowering climbers such as star jasmine, honeysuckle, chocolate vine and passion flower.
7: Rethink your garden furniture
Furniture needs space to breathe in a small garden, or it’ll dominate and feel too large for the space. And if you can’t move around the patio, you’ll immediately feel hemmed in. Avoid large, boxy designs and instead choose something smaller and more elegant, with legs or surfaces you can see through: slatted wood or metal is a good choice, as is wire mesh or plastic rattan. Similarly, less is more with garden furniture – keep chairs to a minimum and choose tables as small as you can get away with.
8: Introduce focal points
When it comes to making a garden feel bigger, one of the easiest things you can do is create ‘moments’, so the eye looks from side to side, focusing on a series of different areas of interest, rather than straight to the boundaries. Artful placement of a statement plant in a large pot or a sculpture, water feature or bird bath will do the job in style, as will a specimen tree with interesting bark or eye-catching seasonal foliage, like Prunus serrula or a Japanese maple.
9: Clear the clutter
Elementary but extremely effective, a good tidy-up will make a small plot immediately feel much more spacious. Be brutal: there’s no room for sentimentality in a tiny garden, and too many pots and ornaments will just make the space feel cluttered. Overgrown plants and weeds will have the same effect, so prune them back or pull them out. Every plant, pot, ornament or structure needs to earn its place. If you need to add storage, go for a tall, slim shed or unit to make the most of the space.
10: Make borders deeper
If your borders are mean and narrow, that feeling will be mirrored in your garden as a whole. Be as generous as you can, even if that means doing away with a small patch of lawn. Generous borders filled with a bounty of foliage and flowers give the impression of abundance, of both variety and space. Even better: bring borders to the heart of the space rather than pushing them to the edges. Be brave and create one that’s perpendicular to a side fence or wall – the effect will be transformative.
11: Use tall plants
Don’t be afraid of trees. They draw the eye upwards and out of the confined footprint of a garden, giving the illusion of space. They also provide essential focal points, vertical interest and huge benefits in terms of biodiversity. Go for hard-working small trees with year-round interest, such as crab apples, amelanchier, silver birch, Japanese maples and sorbus. They’ll be beneficial to you, your garden and its wildlife.
12: ‘Borrow’ a view
If you’re fortunate enough to live somewhere where you have rolling countryside, a handsome tree, mountains, hills or an interesting building beyond your back fence or hedge, you can incorporate it into your garden by framing it. First, figure out where it’s best viewed from, then you can trim down part of a hedge or fence to leave a U-shape or rectangle that brings that view sharply into focus. A purpose-built moon gate can perform the same function.
13: Add a false gate
In a similar way, adding a false gate to a back wall or fence will give the illusion of your garden continuing out into the surrounding countryside. If there are no issues with privacy, make it a gate that you can easily see through and beyond; although even a solid gate will work, to a lesser degree.
14: Use paths to create an illusion
Ditch the idea that a path needs to lead somewhere and you’re onto a winning concept. A path is a really useful device in garden design. One that zigzags at a 45° angle across a garden will make the space seem much wider, as the eye travels from one side and back to the other. A path that does this and ends in an obscured corner of the garden (half-hidden by shrubs or behind a shed) will trick the eye into thinking it leads to another hidden area.
15: Create depth with texture
Foliage plants can be divided into three textural categories – fine, medium and coarse – from plants with tiny leaves like box, all the way through to huge-leaved fatsias, phormiums and cannas. To make a small garden appear deeper, include a variety of textures for interest. Position coarse textures near the front and fine-textured plants towards the back of the garden.
16: Choose big pots
In a small garden, it’s important to be bold and resolute. Especially when it comes to patio pots. Rather than having lots of small planters in different shapes and sizes, choose just one or two big, bold containers in matching terracotta or glazed ceramic. You’ll create much more impact this way and avoid a cluttered, hemmed-in look.
17: Paint a mural
This is a fun one. Tap into your creative side, make use of any old exterior paint you might have lying around and create a trompe l’oeil mural on (ideally) the back wall of your garden. No room for a pond or water feature? Paint one in, using perspective to make it seem like a natural add-on. Or design an extra garden ‘room’ glimpsed through an open gate. Make sure the colours tone with what’s already in your space, and it’ll look all the more realistic.
18: Stick to a minimal colour palette
Just like trying to cram in too many pots or pieces of furniture, a planting scheme with an eclectic colour palette will make a small space appear cluttered and confined. Choose a design that relies on just two or three different colours – pink and white, perhaps, or purple and pale violet – and you’ll open up the garden, bringing calm, cohesion and a greater sense of space.
