67 small garden ideas from the House & Garden archive
There are plenty of small garden ideas to make your patch of outdoor space a blessing, however tiny it may be. It's been proven time and again what a huge benefit having a garden makes to our mental health. No matter how small yours is, it can provide a space for growing flowers, harvesting a kitchen garden or simply relaxing on a sun lounger. A sprawling country garden full of flowers would be ideal, but even having a small garden, balcony or tiny roof terrace can provide solace in spades. The only problem with small spaces is that they can be harder to design, but there's no need to be daunted; arm yourself with the right small garden ideas and design tips and tricks and you'll have the tools you need to make it a tiny sanctuary for you to enjoy all through the warmer months, which are here to stay (fingers crossed)! It doesn't matter if you have a balcony garden or a small patch of patio or even a small front garden, make it a space to be proud of with the right planning and planting.
How do you design a small garden?
Start by thinking about what you need from your garden and how you can plan it to fit those elements in. There are some excellent garden design apps out there that can help you with the basic structure. Chances are you'd like a pleasant place to sit on sunny days, so carve out some space and have a look around for some stylish garden furniture, set up a parasol and prepare for some outdoor dining. We also love using lighting in the garden, especially solar lights, which can help you make the most of the space after dark. And in a small front or back garden, if there's no room for a garden shed, you'll want some sort of garden storage to stow away your garden tools, toys and anything else that has a tendency to end up outdoors.
How do you make a small garden look nice?
It’s time to consider planting. Perhaps you just have room for some plant pots for pretty seasonal plants and herbs around your table and chairs. You may have room for a romantic border that will make your city garden look more like a country garden. Or it may be that you want to learn how to grow vegetables, in which case see our garden editor’s guides to creating a kitchen garden and making a compost heap.
However small your garden is, we believe you can make something beautiful and functional there, so read on for more inspiration. If you’re a novice gardener consult our our essential guide to gardening and landscape design.
Small garden ideas
Michael Sinclair1/67At the back of Rita Konig's west London flat, garden designer Butter Wakefield has created a leafy haven. Butter has created a magical courtyard space, filled with shade-tolerant planting (plenty of topiary and leafy plants) along with flowers in containers, and climbing plants that adorn trellises on the walls.
The hard landscaping was one of the most crucial aspects of the project, with large stones laid throughout the space in a pleasingly irregular fashion. But what gives it real structure and character are the shrubs and topiary dotted through the space. “In many ways the garden was built somewhat back to front,” Butter explains. “We lifted the trees and structural planting into place before the hard landscaping began, which was very unusual for us. We did this so we had enough room for all the various root balls. What we didn’t want to find was that we couldn’t fit all that we wished for in - the planting took precedence over all else. We had never designed a garden this way round ever before, it was both challenging and rather exciting.”
2/67Next up was the laying of the stones themselves. “With the help of our very patient hard landscaping team, we set out each beautiful big stone one by one," explains Butter, "making sure the paving and pitcher detail changed direction often and looked lovely from all views. We went to site every day, for many weeks to check the setting out and adjust/swap/add/subtract any stone we felt wasn’t quite right…. It was a very time-consuming process, but it was also unique, interesting, and felt somehow very bespoke.”
Christopher Horwood3/67The back of this 18th-century Huguenot weavers' house in Spitalfields is typical of these houses, with rusty red woodwork.
Boz Gagovski4/67“The garden is little more than another green-clad room,” say Benedict and Daniel of their small garden in Hackney, but it's heaven on a summer's eve having a drink after a long day. It feels worlds away from the dusty streets of London."
Christopher Horwood5/67Climbing hydrangea and pots of ferns and herbs soften the small north-facing courtyard garden of a beautiful Spitalfields townhouse. The small courtyard garden has been levelled and laid with reclaimed York stone, edged with sunken beds planted with evergreen shrubs. Window frames, fences and doors are painted black.
Sam Frost6/67Janus et Cie furniture creates an inviting seating area in the garden of this terraced house in San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighbourhood, designed by Lauren Weiss.
7/67Outdoor space is a rarity in Manhattan, and terraces and roof gardens are often a best-case scenario. In legendary restauranteur Keith McNally's new SoHo apartment, pots and planters are used to maximise planting without a large footprint. Large trees and greenery provide privacy, without blocking his magnificent view over the Empire State Building.
Owen Gale8/67This small garden, which is enclosed by flint walls was reimagined by Lucy Taylor, who overlaid the cement terrace with reclaimed bricks, and rebuilt the raised beds. ‘Pretty much all the garden was replanted but we kept the ancient pear tree. We replaced the gate but matched the previous Brunswick Green paint colour as a nod to the history of the house.’
Chris Horwood9/67At Nina Campbell's house in Chelsea, there is a tiny courtyard garden lined with greenery in planters.The garden originally had a low wall on to the street which Nina extended to make the space private. There is a bin store hidden behind the wall of roses, and the space is a haven for birds.
Christopher Horwood10/67Designed by Marian Boswall Studio, the tiny garden of this Chelsea townhouse is a place for relaxing and entertaining. The seat cushions have been made up in a fabric by Zak+Fox at George Spencer Designs.
Owen Gale11/67This light-filled Victorian cottage in south London is blessed with a beautiful oasis of a garden, centred around an ancient mulberry tree. Steps from the house wind up past leafy foliage to a terrace where the tree stands.
12/67Wisteria climbs across the rear façade of Neisha Crosland’s London home, a former mews that had been damaged by bombings in World War II and lovingly restored by the textile designer. Crosland had the green paint custom-mixed by Park Walk Paints to match a sample taken from the building’s original garage door. The chairs are Patricia Urquiola for Emu.
Neisha found three old factory windows and converted them into mirrors to put on the garden walls, covering them with a great vine (Vitis coignetiae) which they trained through a hole into the entrance hall, and then out again through another hole onto the front of the house. With the help of a gardener friend Sean Walters they also planted Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides), Kiwi (Actinidia chinensis) and a Madam Alfred Carrière rose. A visit to Le Jardin d’Hiver of the Musée de la Vie Romantique in Paris was a seminal moment in the design.
Owen Gale13/67The garden of this house in Bath leads down to a former garage-come-guesthouse. The small garden space outside features a neat lawn area and seating area for outdoor dining, set under a pergola for a lovely way to provide shade.
Chris Horwood14/67This small London garden, attached to a former vicarage, has been kept natural and beautiful with a lawn edged in lovely borders. The sprawling tree creates a naturalistic element in this city garden.
Mark Anthony Fox15/67In this London house transformed by Veere Grenney, the house has a lovely little garden designed by Alex Hoyle. The furniture is by the American firm Munder Skiles.
Mark Anthony Fox16/67Charlotte Boundy's petite but pretty garden in Shepherd's Bush, which is accessed from the kitchen.
Paul Massey17/67This part of Fiona Golfar's garden at her Cornish house is full of helpful ideas for small gardens. Antique mirrors reflect light around the space, which is filled with plants in containers, a rustic table and benches, and cosy sheepskin coverings.
Eva Nemeth18/67The small space at the side of garden designer Laura Heybrook's Oxford house is put to good use, with pleached hornbeams, topiary and Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ in a terracotta pot.
James McDonald19/67Because decorator Chloe Willis's London apartment takes up half of the original terraced house, the garden is long and thin. To draw your eye, Chloe introduced level changes and raised beds, breaking it up into three spaces and planting geraniums and climbing roses in the seating area “so that it feels secluded and romantic rather than just small.”
Jake Curtis20/67At Thea Speake's basement flat the small courtyard garden outside the open-plan living area and Thea’s bedroom is a sun trap, and looks lovely with simple furniture and striped yellow cushions.
Paul Massey21/67At this Cotswold barn, the outdoor dining area is hidden away amongst the shrubbery, an idea that would work equally well for small gardens. A Maison de Vacances tablecloth from Cutter Brooks and Maisons du Monde metal chairs brighten a bespoke table by Londons Calling Antiques.
Mark Anthony Fox22/67The backview of an East London terrace, where the garden aims to have a sense of cohesion with the main house and its extension.
Paul Massey23/67Annabel Bevan added mirrors to the courtyard garden of her London house to create a sense of space. Annabel and her family moved to London from Bahrain, and the garden reflects the middle Eastern style of the area. The 18th-century patisserie table was bought at Violet Grey Antiques.
Lauren L. Caron24/67The small balcony of this Seattle bungalow by Studio Laloc is transformed into a social space thanks to a sofa from Anthropologie, a coffee table from Chairish.com, and chairs are from Summerhouse. The designer had weatherproof covers made for the upholstered items for the winter months.
Sarah Cuttle25/67In this small city garden featured in Philip Oostenbrink’s The Jungle Garden, plants are all grown in pots, and the emphasis is squarely on having a good display of foliage throughout the year. It’s easy to swap the plants around if some are looking particularly nice at a particular time of year, warranting a place at the front.
Elsa Young26/67In the garden of Henrietta Courtauld’s 1850s London terraced house, yew balls surround the main bed, which is planted with vegetables, Melianthus major and Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’. Among the small but thriving vegetable garden is room for a small shed which works as a studio space. Beyond this vegetable patch is a communal garden that has been a labour of love for Henrietta who is one half of the gardening duo the Land Gardeners who run a thriving flower garden based at Wardington Manor in Oxfordshire.
Romain Ricard27/67In a London house designed by Retrouvius, an indoor-outdoor football pitch for the children uses artificial grass by Easigrass extending from the inside to the end of the garden. It is a gloriously whimsical idea for what would otherwise be the darkest and potentially least inspiring part of the house.
Ngoc Minh Ngo28/67If you don’t have much space, plant upwards. Jos and Annabel White’s six-storey town house in Manhattan's West Village has window boxes full of flowers and trailing ivy framing the patio windows.
Benjamin Edwards29/67With its mix of clean lines and natural textures, the townhouse of interior designer Emma Sims-Hilditch pays homage to its London setting, while serving as a reminder of her rural roots. Designed by Charles Harman, the garden features a Neptune dining table and custom bench. Cushions are in a mix of fabrics from Christopher Farr Cloth.
Paul Massey30/67At Paul and Caroline Weiland’s west London townhouse is this charming garden by Butter Wakefield. The garden was inspired by the one Caroline loved at the Stockholm hotel Ett Hem,, and designed to be an integral part of the living room room beyond the Crittall windows. White gravel and lime chippings are flanked by paths of London brick, with a small terrace created from reclaimed cobblestones.
Michael Sinclair31/67The ground floor of a London house by Emily Todhunter looks out onto the garden created by Tania Compton. Lush planting and wide borders take up a lot of the space but create an oasis feel, heightened by the blue tile-lined water feature in the centre.
Owen Gale32/67This small London garden was designed by Piers Beeching, who used a pretty bench as a focal point and added an abundance of potted plants for colour and protection from neighbouring gardens. By using plants of varying height, Piers has created a sense of scale in the space that could surely give you some front or back garden ideas.
Eva Nemeth33/67In her own London garden, a typical long narrow space, landscape designer Emily Erlam has constructed a series of elegant terraces, each with its own mood, which provide structure for Mediterranean plantings and natural canopies. Using spoil from the recent renovation of the house, levels were built up to form four elegant tiers separated by simple brick retaining walls. Each of the terraces has a distinct atmosphere and purpose: ‘Some of the spaces are for a few people and some are for just one or two, but all have a shared quality of intimacy and shelter,’ she explains.
Eva Nemeth34/67While Daisy Garnett’s Brixton garden is relatively spacious for London, her approach to the patio and to containers is one any small garden owner can learn from. Daisy’s growing collection of pots on the terrace brings seasonal colour and interest to the area for most of the year. In an array of different shapes, sizes and materials, they contain plants ranging from large shrubs to tiny annuals. The large terracotta urn from Mallorca was a gift from her father.
35/67In her London home, designer Bridie Hall has a tiny patio which she imbues with the idea of a country garden via verdant planting and a sweet mismatched bistro table and chairs.
Eva Nemeth36/67In this Bruges garden by Piet Blanckaert, the trees and shrubs bordering the reclaimed Belgian Blue stone terrace are clipped and pollarded so as not to dominate the space. Edged by a serpentine hedge of cloud-pruned box, a narrow canal reflects vegetation and sky. It creates an illusion of space in the small courtyard.
Andrew Montgomery37/67The strict, geometric layout of Jinny Blom’s small garden is reinforced by a backbone of structural planting: great big squares of box – ‘I’ve always loved box in squares, long before Christopher Bradley-Hole did it at Chelsea,’ she says with a twinkle in her eye – and a bold peppering of big-leaved, exotic plants that give the garden a distinctly contemporary feel. The bottom right corner of the garden is planted with Geranium ‘Patricia’ and a multi-stemmed Catalpa x erubescens ‘Purpurea’, which is perfect for small gardens if pruned every year.
Paul Massey38/67Helen Fraser and Non Morris, founders of garden-design company Fraser & Morris, haven’t let space restrictions stop them from creating an abundantly green and wonderfully lush garden, complete with a beautiful fig tree. Think big, people.
39/67The outside of Cameron Kimber’s house in New South Wales is covered in charming clapboard. Gravel, generous tubs, and a lovely white bench come together to create a welcoming entrance to the house.
Alessio Mei40/67If you have a tiny garden, create a snug corner that features tiling and pretty textiles – then everybody will be too cosy to notice its diminutive size. Bonus points if you frame the hideout with a beautiful arch.
The owner of this garden loves the simple generosity and glowing fowers of the Plumbago family. Here, Plumbago Auriculata has been trained over an arch in the riad to frame a view of the beautifully painted niche, which makes the perfect hideout on hot afternoons. Inticately patterned tiling decorates the interior of the alcove seating area.
Extract taken from Gardens of Marrakesh by Angelica Gray. Photographs by Alessio Mei. Published by Frances Lincoln at £14.99 in paperback.
Paul Massey41/67The double level wall in this Cornish cottage garden draws the eye up and makes the space seem large in the process. It's a clever trick also used in interior design to trick the eye.
42/67The founder of JamJar flowers knows how to create a beautiful garden, even in a small space. This garden at her Brixton house has a romantic, countryside feel thanks to furniture gathered from various antiques markets.
Tim Beddow43/67When it came to her garden, decorator Sarah Vanrenen added a feature fireplace as the focal point for summer nights. She kept the garden neutral – full of greens and stone – to maximise the space.
Simon Brown44/67This west London garden belongs to designer Butter Wakefield and is filled with an abundance of geums, foxgloves, nepeta, roses and geraniums; a wildflower meadow sweeps across the centre of the lawn, which is handsomely framed by clipped box pyramids. Disguised behind a trellis is her workstation – apple crates overflow with knapweed, daisies and wild carrot and there are planters of orange, salvia and cow parsley.
Chris Tubbs45/67Sussy Cazalet Design were asked to create an organic, mystical, jungle inspired space using natural and organic materials that soften the glass extension opening onto this small garden. A bespoke designed lava stone table was installed, along with teal lava tiles wrapping around the seating area. The bamboo canopy was designed and built to feel natural and unobtrusive, with the hope in time to be completely overgrown with plants.
NGOC MINH NGO46/67In a courtyard of this David-Chipperfield-designed house, a Japanese maple is underplanted with cloud-pruned Lonicera nitida ‘Maigrün’.
Alex James47/67The tiny courtyard at the home of the interior designer Helen Green comprises simple but elegant touches: a trellis of roses, a feature stone water plinth and plants potted in a variety of vessels, from wooden crates to wicker baskets and pewter milk pails.
Alexander James48/67The compact garden of a restored weaver’s house in Spitalfields is in its infancy, but has shown surprising results already. ‘The shrub Tzbouchina generally needs greenhouse conditions in this country, but, as it’s protected on all sides, it's flourishing,’ owner Olwen says.
Ngoc Minh Ngo49/67Pots are grouped on the deck of an admittedly rather large Kensington garden by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, however this corner shows an idea that can be translated to rather more humble spaces. The wall of foliage cocoons the deck area with the pots adding a contrasting note to the decking and greenery that creates the illusion of space and makes the garden appear rather grand.
Benjamin Edwards50/67This sunken terrace garden at a 19th-century terraced house designed by Bryan O’Sullivan has a living wall of plants designed by the landscape artist Elizabeth Staveley of LandARC.
Lucas Allen51/67Diamond pattern paving leads back to a shady seating area in the garden of a timeless townhouse in Bray decorated by Christopher Howe.
Lucas Allen52/67Designer David Bentheim brings greenery to a wood-decked garden with potted plants of varying sizes, and uses shrubbery to give privacy from neighbouring eyes.
53/67Pergola perfection – we’ve found it in this wisteria-clad pergola installed by Sean Walter of The Plant Specialist. Hanging wisteria provides shade for the outdoor dining area, while striped cushions make this a stylish corner in the garden of a London flat designed by Charlotte Crosland.
Kara Rosenlund54/67Even a small decking area can provide a relaxing outdoor space. Make like Anna Spiro and her Brisbane house and employ sweet potted plants for a burst of life.
Rachael Smith55/67This collection of pots arranged in front of an outdoor mirror in the west London garden of interior designer Louise Jones brings a touch of the countryside to her city space. They are planted with a combination of white geraniums, cosmos and lobelia.
Andrew Montgomery56/67Jinny Blom’s small city garden is a neatly walled space, replanted only months before this photograph was taken. Clipped box cubes contrasts with a clever planting scheme that mixes large-leaved exotic plants with cottage-garden favourites. A wide pond is traversed by a clever walkway.
Paul Massey57/67Suzy Hoodless’s low maintenance garden features Kettal’s ‘Riva’ armchairs, designed by Jasper Morrison for outdoor use, on an AstroTurf lawn.
Michael Sinclair58/67This small roof garden features potted herbs on rustic shelves, which offer a fantastic way of maximising on space outdoors. For more inspiration, see our balcony and rooftop garden ideas. Designer Jane Gowers discovered her London terrace house by chance, but its restoration and decoration have been the result of good judgement and a sympathetic approach.
59/67This chic Belgravia townhouse features a compact paved area with a large mirror to visually enlarge the space. Modern furniture is balanced by an abundance of climbing plants softening the walls.
Alexander James60/67Grasses are planted in front of the original wisteria-hung loggia at this house designed by William Smalley, while a stone table makes a great permanent dining space.
Sharyn Cairns61/67This seating area in the courtyard garden of a Kent barn conversion was designed by Kate Gould.
Rachael Smith62/67Louisa Jones developed a passion for David Austin roses when she was planning the garden of her Victorian cottage in south west London. She planted an arbour of roses to separate the patio and lawn of her country-style city garden.
Ngoc Minh Ngo63/67A brilliant small garden design idea – the uber-pretty porch at this Dominican Republic hotel, painted in what the owner describes as ‘faded bathing-suit colours’, is furnished with a vintage macrame hammock and peacock chair.
Simon Upton64/67If you’re lucky enough to have a brick wall, cover it in wisteria. If your wall is moderately tall, the vines will quickly scale it and each year you will be rewarded with the most beautiful spring display. A perfect idea for an outdoor space without much space for planting.
Paul Massey65/67The pretty shuttered doors leading onto the garden at the French country house of textiles designer Susan Deliss have been painted bright white. They look clean and fresh nestled amongst green foliage and vines that climb the walls of the house.
Alessio Mei66/67Drama is created in a simple linking passageway at Riad Madani with a brooding shade of magenta plaster twinned with the green tiled floor. Potted bananas interspersed with young Philodendron Bipinnatidum add hot tropical notes.
Extract taken from Gardens of Marrakesh by Angelica Gray. Photographs by Alessio Mei. Published by Frances Lincoln.
Simon Brown67/67A small vegetable garden sits in front of the guest house at this elegant Georgian home in Oxfordshire. The guest house was the conversion of a former garage behind the house, which means that friends who come to stay can be independent.
Smart small garden ideas from Sam McKnight
