Getting started

Tips for designing a small space

You've bought a house in a new development. You love its look, its location, its neighborhood ambience.

There's just one problem: The backyard is bare ground.

How do you create your dream garden without breaking the bank?

Around the West, in cities and suburbs, big houses on small lots mean one thing: Space for outdoor living is diminishing—especially in new developments. Sunset staff members jumped at the chance to meet this challenge by designing gardens for four model homes in the Esperanza Estates development in Esparto, near Davis, California.

Julie Chai, Lauren Bonar Swezey, Bud Stuckey, and Peter O. Whiteley set to work converting bare earth to a backyard paradise over several months. Their goal was to provide a variety of affordable landscape designs for modest backyards (about 60 by 30 feet) on a budget of roughly $15,000 each, plus installation. The gardens had to be easy to maintain and simple to modify as the future owners' needs changed.

The sites, which all faced north, were challenging, with wind, hot sun, shade near the house, little privacy, and compact soil. But as you'll see on the following pages, our designers succeeded, putting together plans for personal retreats, play spaces, backyard escapes, and a family garden with a generous party deck—all loaded with innovative ideas you can use.

Thomas J. Story

• Consider your needs. Determine the activities that are most important to you and your family: relaxation, sports, growing edibles and flowers? What features does your family most want: a pool, spa, fountain, or outdoor barbecue or kitchen? Look for ideas in magazines and books.

• Study light conditions. Watch the sun and shade patterns at different times of the day in both summer and winter. Where does the sun rise and set? Does the house shade the garden in winter? What about nearby trees and other structures?

• Check the soil. The quickest way to determine how well the soil drains is to dig a 2-foot-deep hole and fill it with water. After it drains away, fill it again. If the water doesn't drain away in several hours, the soil is poorly drained. A hardpan or impervious layer of soil (called caliche in the Southwest's low deserts) might be the cause. You can break it up if it's shallow. Otherwise, install tile drains to direct excess water away from patios and plantings.

• Determine your climate zone. How much rainfall do you get? What are the minimum and maximum temperatures? Look in the Sunset Western Garden Book for your climate zone.

• Choose a theme. It can be based on a color scheme or house style (Mediterranean, tropical, or Japanese, for instance).

Tips for designing a small space l Top

Thomas J. Story
Backed by a screen of golden bamboo, the satellite deck, dressed with cushions and candles, angles into a corner of the garden and functions as a tropical retreat. The rectangular platform is raised slightly so it appears to float above a bed of river rock.

• Think big. Make the patio large enough to accommodate a dining table and chairs with plenty of space around them to move about. If there's no room for an adequate lawn, forget it and expand the size of the patio or planting beds instead. Don't chop up the yard into unusable spaces.

• Design for flexibility. A patio can function as both outdoor dining room and tricycle track.

• Simple is often better. Choose one or two paving materials and keep patterns fairly uncomplicated. For continuity, repeat the use of building materials in a deck, bench, and planter.

• Create illusion. Make a small garden feel larger by layering plants. Set taller shrubs and small trees in the background, medium-size plants in the middle of the bed, and eye-catching low growers in the foreground.

• Develop focal points. Use sculpture, big containers, objets d'art, and showy plants to devise vignettes or points of interest.

• Create a destination. Situate a remote patio or bench away from the house, frame it with plants, and position a pot or piece of sculpture nearby.

• Add built-in furniture. Form a raised planter along the edge of a patio and add a wide ledge for seating.

For more landscaping projects, visit www.sunset.com/backyards