Home. It’s that little piece of the earth you get to call yours. It’s the place you get back to every day where you can let your guard down and just be who you want to be. Still, that little niggle at the back of your mind won’t let you relax completely, though. Not yet. Something’s missing.
Looking out on the yard, something does hit you. You’ve been wanting to have a few of your closest friends over. You want them to have this same relaxed feeling of “home” that you enjoy while you talk over a barbeque or some drinks. Or you can choose to have that someone special over for a glass–okay, maybe several–from your favorite bottle of wine. And you get the idea that a play date for your kids would be perfect in this space.
However, it doesn’t look as you sometimes picture it in your mind. Whereas you envision a picturesque mystical grassland, in reality, your yard is presenting you with little tufts of grass sprouting across bare land. It looks like it would make an ideal motivation poster about persevering through adversity or be featured in a Western movie with the inclusion of tumbleweed.
Your big worry is… it’s so small. Read on, because myths are better when they’re busted!
1. Use the size to your advantage.
This means it’s time to think outside the box. In a small yard situation, many people will resort to stuffing the backyard landscape with a lot of features. Unfortunately, this typically ends up creating something of a claustrophobic effect. Your yard is supposed to be a place of freedom and instead, it can present the feeling of being choked out of existence.
What you can do instead, is plan how to optimize spacing in your yard. Instead of focusing on one large element in the middle of the yard, do something different. This could be as simple as placing trees in a ring and then use some classy paving stones to make patterned walkways to the trees. Or create a decorative stone pattern for a unique patio or sitting area.
2. Small patio?
This is an advantage to you if you want to create something that communicates intimacy. You could use a wooden picket fence or a low dry stack stone wall to separate your patio from the garden. But don’t leave the fence bare. You could place potted plants on it. And it would look much more artistic if you would mix and match the colors of the plants, pots, and in the stone wall itself.
A new trend is emerging. Instead of constructing a deck out of wood, many are now turning to stone or concrete patio pavers. This gives you a wealth of artistic freedom and design options to choose from. You could even make a tiered patio and have a seating area on the higher tier. And people sometimes choose landscape tiles to create a natural stone appearance at the more pocket-friendly price of concrete.
3. Ease of management.
In this case, the larger your yard, the more effort will be required to maintain it. So if you want to simplify your work, that’s easy. The use of xeriscaping with decorative gravels, walkways, garden areas requiring little irrigation, and different types of cultivation systems may be used to achieve this.
For instance, you could build a vertical garden. One inexpensive implementation is to use plastic bottles as planters for your favorite flowers. They can be hung from racks anchored to a fence. Another possibility is to create a tiered landscape with flower beds or vegetables also hanging on your walls. A simple Google search will present seemingly endless possibilities when it comes to vertical gardening.
Conclusion
So you see, with a little bit of creativity and search engine mojo you may find that landscaping for your small yard can be fun and may offer you just what you want, and with less work than a big yard!
