Small Space Gardens

by David Stevens

A small garden can be beautiful, low maintenance, sheltered, intimate and fun. Good design, both inside and outside the home, is timeless and is based on sound principles. Small Space Gardens takes you easily through the entire planning sequence, providing a progressive and exciting organizational sequence that will meld interior, exterior, and borrowed landscape into an elegant, practical, and integrated whole. The first chapter demonstrates how to analyze your space -- what you have in your garden already, what to keep and what to introduce, from furniture and lighting to walls and paths. This will help you to decide what you want from your space -- whether an eating area or play zone, vegetables and herbs or a built-in barbecue. The second chapter moves on to the planning of your garden and how to maximize the space through the use of dividers, paths, walls, and raised areas, as well as making the most of vertical space. The third chapter explains why the choice of materials is crucial in a small garden, and guides you through the options. The final chapter on planting strategy helps you to formulate a considered plan to create color, texture, and atmosphere. Practical, informative, and featuring case studies that reinforce all aspects of the text, Small Space Gardens demystifies garden design to help you create a garden that feels spacious and appealing. It is essential reading for anyone with even a square foot of outside space.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2003

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

This author writes on gardening.

Reviews

[Anna Marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Summary of this book:

1. create a swamp feature.
2. buy $700 rock in the shape of a sphere for contrast.
3. Add more swamp features.
4. Tiny patches of grass between lots of stone for massive tedious upkeep.
5. Could you use more water? Yes, why yes you could.
7. Plant grass where people can't get in to mow it.
8. Swamp is so chic.
9. Garish, grotesque stone seating that'll kill your hiney.
10. Got lily pads?

This was not enjoyable. It wasn't really even pretty. In fact, it wasn't pretty at all. I spent half the time looking for snakes. Just sayin'.

[Deodand · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hey, it's a book that actually SAYS it's about small gardens, and it's about small gardens. That might not seem like too much to ask, but I've been reading about this topic a lot, and my definition of a "small" garden doesn't necessarily overlap with that of the authors.

This book is not budget-conscious at all, but there is some good dreaming/planning material here.

[Jana Kelsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

would have been nice to read plant list