You can pack a lot of wow into small spaces. Even a tiny courtyard can be transformed into a glorious garden world, where lush plant specimens rub shoulders with wonderful water features, clever vertical gardens and stylish outdoor furniture.
WATCH: Graham visits a small space courtyard garden
Take a look around two stunning city gardens one an eco-conscious rooftop, the other a delightful jewel box of a garden behind a narrow terrace house. Together, they prove how you can take show-garden-style cues to achieve something fabulous around your own home. Compact and creative, they are filled with ideas you will want to own.
1. Small space, big impact
Shed walls are features waiting to happen. This alluring statue and small plant shelf turn a forgotten window into a cute little garden grotto.
2. Tropical Retreat
With cascades of luscious foliage reaching out from all sides, you can barely tell where the boundaries of this tropically inspired garden actually lie. Thats the secret of its design its small dimensions are cleverly disguised, and just enough open space fills the middle area to provide a place to sit and relax. Even the garden gates are obscured from view, courtesy of their plantings epiphytic species like bromeliads and epiphyllums form a wall of foliage on the gates surface. Other quirky elements in the garden include salvaged objects and old enamel containers used as planters for a miniature cactus garden.
3. Rooftop Planter
Use every inch of space in small gardens. This trough of hardy succulents sits on a roof, providing a scene to view from the window.
4. Upcycled Planter
Old enamel containers can be used as curious planters for succulents and cacti. Drill a few drainage holes in the base before you plant.
5. Underplanted Orange Tree
Despite its small size, the garden is home to a mature orange tree, its trunk festooned with bromeliads and underplanted with various sub-tropical species.
6. Outdoor Setting
In a densely planted garden, always include a clearing in the woods, where the space opens out to accommodate a relaxing spot.
7. Disguise Walls
Try disguising garden walls with a tumble of tropical foliage plants, like this combination of bromeliads, colocasias (taro) and monstera.
8. Potted Wall and Table
An old drainage board is reinvented as a mounting panel for a collection of tillandsias, while the table below hosts a buffet of succulents.
9. Urban Oasis
Edging a rooftop billabong with a timber boardwalk is not the sort of thing you'd expect to find on top of an inner-city house. But thats what makes this high rise garden so delightful - the feel of a natural environment in a distinctly urban context. The rooftop patch is just part of the eco-conscious design, which includes a seven-metre high vertical garden and a fabulous outdoor dining table with water feature. The garden and house work in perfect harmony, with the green roof space creating effective insulation for the building, vastly reducing the cooling requirements and energy bills over summer.
10. Vertical Garden
Vertical gardening reaches new heights in this inner-city garden. Both the front fence and the wall beside the front door are planted to the max with ferns, grasses, cordylines, ctenanthes and plenty more.
11. Simple Colour Palette
Keep the colour palette simple and muted so the garden becomes restful and receding.
12. Colourful Foliage
Striking foliage plantings keep a garden looking good all year round. Note this combination of liriope with burgundy aeonium and Sedum Gold Mound.
13. Rooftop Billabong
With its own billabong and boardwalk path, a rooftop garden becomes a gorgeous retreat, which doubles as home insulation.
14. Symmetrical Layout
Where courtyards can be viewed from above, consider a symmetrical layout and a sleek black and white colour scheme.
15. Dining Table Water Feature
How's this for double duty? The glass-topped outdoor dining table doubles as an amazing water feature!
16. House to Garden
An open view from the back of the house takes the eye straight into the lush garden.
17. Outdoor Lighting
For a courtyard that glows rather than glares, incorporate built-in downlights into the walls of raised garden beds. It saves space, too.
18. Rustic Wooden Pathway
If you love rustic materials, decline the usual array of mod pavers and make your paths from weathered sleepers instead. They add a touch of the unexpected when used in a courtyard or rooftop space.
19. Succulents
Even a sun-baked space like a rooftop can look pretty - mass plant succulents in shades of green, grey, gold, red and mauve.
20. Uncluttered Design
Smother the walls but don't over-clutter the middle. Use vertical garden systems to add foliage, then dress the scene with gorgeous ornaments like plaques and mirrors.
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