[Inspiration] Inspiration Page – SU22 Small Gardens

Sarah’s ideas for small gardens

Taking inspiration from this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Sarah shares ideas for small gardens and urban spaces

Make a jungle >
Whopper pots >
Put on a show >
Compost & drainage >
Shady spaces >

designing without the luxury of space?

Stick to Sarah’s rules for small garden spaces for guaranteed high performance

make a jungle 

Make a jam-packed, flower-filled haven. If you have a fence or wall, plant climbers, they make tiny areas feel like they go on forever. I recommend cobaea or clematis for an instant jungle

go for whopper pots

My must-have idea number 2 is to have a family of four whopper pots to give oomph. Go as big as you can because large pots are easier to maintain. Small table centre pots are lovely, but dry out quickly in the summer heat and need to be watered morning and night, whereas large pots, you can reduce to three times a week

pick the perfect planter

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putting on a show 

For rule 3, I have a useful recipe for containers with ingredients fulfilling different roles: I choose pot-suitable dahlias as my main showy flower and colour deliverer (my Thriller), a delicate, light, airy middle layer (my Filler) and a climber trained on a frame to give height (my Pillar). Also encourage the climber to trail down the sides (so acting as a Spiller too)

For pots 1 and 2, go for 3 Dahlia ‘Molly Raven’ per pot. For the Filler choose 3 per pot of the crimson-leaved foliage Hibiscus ‘Mahogany Splendour’. For the Pillar, which also cascades out around the edges, it’s 5 plants of Rhodochiton (R. atrosanguineum ‘Purple Bells’), the purple bell vine

Pots 3 and 4 are just two ingredients: three plants of Dahlia ‘Waltzing Mathilda’ per pot along with three each of a classy pair of black-eyed Susan's, Thunbergia alata ‘African Sunset’ and ‘Sunny Suzy Brownie’. The dahlia gives sunny saucer flowers in a mix of crimson and apricot, picked up by the same colours of the flower clad Thunbergias

For climbers I recommend creating a frame at the centre of the pot from bamboo canes, pea sticks or metal obelisk to give winter bones to the garden. This will help support the top-heavy dahlia and give the vines something over which it can climb. The frame helps with pot drama too

compost and drainage

For rule 4, polystyrene packing which can’t be recycled, 15cm deep, or crumpled up compost bags makes great drainage, and then add peat-free compost. I’ve also collected mole hills gathered on a few dog walks. This friable soil added to the compost (about one-third soil to two-thirds compost) helps both water retention and fertility

shop compost >

planting in shade

Tip number 5 is for planting in shade. Keep it simple with hellebores for winter and spring, and hydrangeas for summer into autumn. The long-flowering and handsome hellebore varieties ‘Maestro’ and ‘Merlin’ make a great pairing. Just as they stop cheering the place, out comes Hydrangea ‘Limelight’ with great soft green candelabras of flowers, and the crazily huge but healthy ‘Incrediball’

And lastly, if you’ve got room, go for one final pot combination, a 2-metre animal water trough. Propped up on bricks, with the drainage hole already in, these give you long-lasting containers large enough to grow almost anything in and surprisingly, they look as good in a city garden as they do in a farmyard. Dahlia ‘Totally Tangerine’, Salvia ‘Amistad’ and Panicum ‘Sparkling Fountain’ are my suggested trio.