Many smaller homes throughout the London area are cursed with a great view but a very small garden. The London post might have explained which areas of London are most in demand for housing, but no matter where you live, it’s important to cultivate a garden. Thankfully, there are many ways to utilise a small London garden.
Elegant Small City Gardens
If you have a small amount of space, that is not a problem. You can make a city garden that is useful, gives you privacy, and makes your small space feel much larger.
The design for a city garden needs to be well organized so that it delivers the stylish effect you want, but can still offer a degree of privacy, provide a handful of seating opportunities for your guests, and accommodate structural planting. The result will be a space that has a vibrant energy in which you can relax and socialize for years to come. One of the best ways to bring your friends together is to invest in a hot tub for the garden if your space allows.
Seating is an important feature for a small city garden. In fact, the most significant feature for any small garden is an attractive table and matching bench set. The reason being: it becomes the inevitable focal point. This means it doubles as a place for seating and a structural device. This is why it must be as attractive as possible.
You can create a neat screening with a row of olive trees or bamboo. This will form a strong structural presence and act as a boundary for your garden. The repetition created by a row of trees will screen adjoining gardens and create a sense of harmony.
Low plants along a footpath or your seating area can offset the larger paved area in your city garden and will bring greenery closer to the part of the garden you use the most. For small city gardens you can put low-maintenance gravel surfaces in lieu of the traditional lawn. This will act as an additional seating area and if you retain the shape and the size of where a lawn would be placed you can maintain the balance of your garden. You can also blend stone paving with granite chips to provide variety in a low-maintenance space.
Elegant Rooftop Gardens
If you have a small rooftop garden that you want to turn into a verdant spot for entertainment and relaxation, consider the following: Hidden rooftop gardens are a great way for urban dwellers to re-connect with nature. However, the soil you will bring to a rooftop is often restricted to containers. Your plants and garden foliage will also be subject to unrelenting sun and wind exposure that it would not otherwise get at ground level. This means that your two biggest battles will be preventing desiccation and maintaining proper moisture levels.
Your rooftop garden can still be converted into an elegant escape by grouping your greenery and plants together to not only make the space very green visually, but to also help them fight off the effects of the weather.
You can use vertical planting in the form of tall plants or containerized trees to surround the lateral views and the views of those overlooking your rooftop. These trees also provide shelter from winds.
Speaking of shelter, you want your seating area to be deliberately located in an area that gets the most shelter from the wind. You might also place the seats next to containers that you packed with scented herbs like lavender or rosemary. These will add to the impression that your rooftop garden is far from the city over which it looks.
Every plant must be placed in a container but these containers can be clustered together to provide a border. The best thing about container planting is that you can move the pots around until you find a combination that works best for your elegant garden. Another advantage to grouping your container plants is that they form a natural shelter against drying out, which means you don’t have to water them as often as you would if they were standing alone.
You can install a timber deck as an open space that is flexible in use and breaks up the overall composition of your rooftop garden. Timber decks are practical and lighter than concrete or stone which makes them an ideal material or a rooftop.
Whichever ideas you choose, rest assured that there are great ways for you to take advantage of a small London garden.
