Really Small Gardens: A Practical Guide to Gardening in a Truly Small Space

by Jill Billington

Book Overview

Whether designing a lush abundant courtyard or creating a formal roof garden, this book walks the gardener through the important steps of determining priorities, selecting plants and materials,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1570761280
• ISBN13: 9781570761287
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Trafalgar Square Publishing
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 10.1" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Practical planning for the small garden

Really Small Gardens. This is the Royal Horticultural Society's "practical guide to gardening in a truly small space" and it is a very comprehensive guide to planning a small garden. The author has covered all the planning bases in a down-to-earth, practical style. Written by a garden designer whose tiny gardens have won awards at the famed Chelsea Flower Show in England, this book has a wealth of ideas for gardens, courtyards, rooftops and alleyways - all presented with the eye of the artist. She spends time helping the reader deal with the elements of a small garden that a reader might be stuck with. She offers ideas for gardens that might be too shady, too hot, too exposed, cursed with clay soil, overlooked by a hideous brick wall, or containing ugly sheds, manhole covers and electricity meters. Not only are the ideas suggested, but at the back there is a how-to-do-it section to help you make the vision a reality. I found this very valuable. It's all very well saying "Hide an ugly brick wall with a trellis covered with vines", but how do you get a trellis to stand up against a brick wall? This book explains it. Then having dealt with the problems, she moves along to the possibilities. These is so much you have to choose when you plan any garden, and a tiny space takes more planning than most. Would you like formal or informal? Crammed with plants or restrained? Would you like to "borrow" the surrounding scenery or exclude it at all costs? Jill Billlington will take you through the planning for the garden of your dreams. Lest you thought that gardening was a pastime for gentle souls, in the chapter titled "Illusion" the author has included sections on concealing, exploiting and trickery. It sounds more like Las Vegas than Chelsea Flower Show. But this is where she gets down and dirty with concrete ideas for hiding anything you don't want to see and drawing to everyone's attention the best aspects of your garden. The book has a directory of what the author calls "tried, tested and dependable" plants for small spaces. This includes some small trees, both deciduous and evergreen (if you should have enough space), as well as shrubs, perennials, climbers, bulbs and annuals. It ends with plans for different shapes and styles of garden and hints about how to shape plants growing beside walls and how to go about making structures such as arches and trellises to support them. This is a book for anyone planning a small garden. The author's artistic approach is a revelation to gardeners like me who are not very artistic, and will be welcomed by those who are artistic and will enjoy the practical approach of a kindred spirit.