Small Yard Landscaping Design

Small garden landscapes are incredibly detail-oriented. Whether the garden is gracing a condominium, a tiny bungalow, or a rooftop, there is no room for sloppy design or incompleteness. That's because what is neglected will invariably become an eyesore.

Despite their diminutive size, small gardens can also have plant palettes as varied as a larger garden. Small gardenscapes can range from quaint cottage-style designs to modern, upscale looks. To accommodate the limitations in space in a small garden, landscaping designers will often use miniature plant species, dwarf specimens and other adapted materials. A good designer doesn't scale down the same garden plan used for a palatial estate, but rather knows how to emphasize and embody the daintier dimensions of a small outdoor space.

Get these tips

In this section, you'll find tips from landscaping professionals on:

• Three basic strategies for successful landscape design in cramped quarters.
• How to create many tiny focal points throughout small garden spaces that can become surprises when unexpectedly discovered.
• Why it's important to think in square inches rather than feet when designing a small garden.
• The main differences between designing a rooftop garden and designing a suburban landscape.
• The challenges of planning a rooftop garden, including weight, accessibility, wind and plant height.
• Ideas for small garden elements that can serve multiple purposes, such as built-in bench seating that doubles as storage.
• Your options for perennials, shrubs and trees sized to fit into limited areas.
• Herbaceous perennials for small gardens that are adaptable to odd-sized areas.
• How to choose dwarf shrubs for a small garden that match the diameter of the growing space and meet height limitations to avoid crowding overhangs and eaves.
• Ideas for how to use a single small tree in a tiny garden as both a focal point and a problem solver.
• Six websites with tips and ideas for small garden design-from free planning tools and photos to how-to advice.
• Why it's important to use the highest-quality materials you can afford in a small garden.
• How to fit multiple landscaping elements in a small backyard.
• How a narrow yard can be designed to incorporate a pool, deck, fire pit, and lawn area.
• Ideas for landscaping a small side yard using retaining walls and shade plants.
• Solutions for solving typical small-yard landscape challenges, such as creating privacy, ensuring proper drainage, and blocking out noise and wind.
• How to integrate interior flooring materials with the paving materials used in a small garden.
• Design and plant solutions for small shade gardens.

When it comes to the design of small garden, it's important to attend to the details, design every inch, integrate surprise and splurge on materials. Whether you decide to create a very powerful and exciting small space or a modern minimalist one, a professional landscaper can help you bring your small garden to life.

Tropical Landscape Design Ideas that will help you bring the tropics to your own backyard

The most recognizable trademarks of this style are lush, tropical plants and bold colors. Think palm trees swaying in the wind, birds of paradise showing off their bright flowers and lots of healthy greenery. Hammocks are especially appropriate for a tropical garden, just make sure the trees you hang it from are nice and strong.

Tropical Swimming Pool DesignMany tropical style yards feature a swimming pool. These pools usually have a natural look as if you could stumble upon them in the rainforest or jungle. This natural appearance is achieved through the use of faux boulders. Sometimes these boulders can also serve as a waterfall, jumping rock, or even have and incorporated water slide. You can add to the tropical vibe by replicating the sparkling turquoise water of a tropical island beach. This dazzling color is created by selecting a light colored interior pool finish.

A Shade Structure with a Tropical VibeIn an outdoor living space shade is often essential, especially during warm summer months. For a landscape with a tropical theme you should select a thatched roof patio cover. These structures, which have a roof covered in palm fronds or reeds, are known as either a tiki hut or a palapa. To complete the look the columns supporting the structure can be made of real or faux bamboo.

Putting the Final Touches on a Tropical YardMany homeowners often overlook the final touches of their landscaping. Adding just the right outdoor décor will help solidify your yard's tropical theme.

Ideas for Tropical Outdoor Décor:

• A hand-carved tiki statue or Buddha head statue
• Citronella or gas powered tiki torches
• A bamboo fence or bamboo path edging
• Teak or rattan patio furniture with bright colored upholstery
• A colorful Mayan hammock
• A gas fire pit with lava rock filler

New Native Grass Mix Developed by ECOSSISTEMAS - Landscaping & Garden Center .

 

The grass mix, named HABITURF™, contains these grasses native to the Southwest: Buffalograss (Bouteloua dactyloides), blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) and curly-mesquite (Hilaria belangeri) and depending on the source: Texas grama (Bouteloua rigidiseta) hairy Grama (Bouteloua hirsuta), poverty dropseed (Sporobolus vaginiflorus). Here are instructions for establishing a native lawn for these climates.
“We created a lawn that needs less mowing and keeps weeds out better than a common American lawn option,” said Dr. Mark Simmons, director of the center’s Ecosystem Design Group. Simmons led the study comparing common Bermudagrass to the seven native grasses that will be published online this week in the journal Ecological Engineering.
The traditional turfgrass and the native grasses responded the same to mowing once or twice a month, to two watering regimens and to the equivalent of foot traffic. However, the turf of seven native grasses produced a carpet that was 30 percent thicker in early spring than the Bermuda turf. As temperatures climbed into mid-summer and all the lawns thinned, the mixed native turfgrass still stayed 20 percent thicker than Bermuda.
Although Buffalograss also retained its lushness into summer, the mixed native turfgrass beat both single species (monoculture) turfgrasses in weed resistance. When dandelion seeds were added by hand, those plots grew half as many dandelions as the Buffalograss or Bermudagrass plots.
To see if the mixed native turfgrass would also outperform the others under conditions such as very light watering, Simmons and his colleagues will conduct the next research phase later this year. The answer under some conditions will likely be a yes because the multiple species in natural grasslands are thought to allow them to respond better to different conditions over time.
Simmons and colleagues used funding from Walmart to establish multiple plots of grasses in an open field at the center. They intend to develop other mixes for other ecological and regional situations.
 

Curry Please

I really enjoyed my visit to Cornell Plantations this week, particularly the herb garden, which was still looking good after several hard frosts. Even in the relatively chilly November air, I was overpowered by scent as I passed one of the 17 theme beds. This was clearly the "tussie mussie and nosegay" bed.

Particularly fragrant were the green santolina and the curry plant, Helichrysum italicum, which looks like lavender and smells like dinner--but isn't good to eat.
I remember, however, once buying a different herbaceous plant labelled as "curry plant" in a nursery that smelled similarly savory, but that had rounded little succulent leaves. I haven't identified that one yet.

And then there is the curry tree, Murraya koenigii, pictured above, which is native to India and actually is used in Indian cooking. When I interviewed the great Indian cookbook writer Madhur Jaffrey, she was laughing at the lengths to which she'd gone--driving out to Jersey in order to meet the one not terribly professional guy offering it at the time--in order to obtain a curry tree to grow in a pot. When we spoke it wasn't doing terribly well for her. I remember her telling me about a few pathetic leaves hanging on.

Maybe that's not an uncommmon experience, as this Atlantic blog post suggests. Still, all risks involving dinner are worth taking, in my opinion. I'm ordering a curry tree! It can join my neglected potted rosemary, bay tree, and citrus trees that are dragged in and out of the house every year at some point. I'll let you know how it goes.