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Landscaping

Small Garden Design

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The small garden design begins and ends with thoughtful, precise planning. However, small does not mean limited. A small garden design can still deliver a huge “wow” factor.

Small Garden Design: The Problems

A small garden design comes with big challenges. Perhaps your property abuts the two-story blank wall of a neighbor’s townhouse. Maybe the space is all straight lines and right angles. Or you’ve remodeled your home, changed the elevation, added a new room and reduced the size of your backyard, all of which affect the relationship to the existing landscape.

Turning Liabilities into Assets

With small garden design, as with all landscape design, the goal is to create spaces in which the home and architectural elements have a relationship with the yard and surrounding area. First, consider the big picture-your assets and liabilities. Begin by looking at the large, possibly immoveable factors, such as trees, a long fence-line or pool equipment, and decide if they are liabilities or assets. In this way, you test the viability and capacity of the site, a determination that will help clarify your landscape design options. Landscape designers or landscape architects can bring expertise and experience to this process.

Small Garden Design: Features to Consider

• Hardscapes. Decks, patios, pergolas, arbors and gates can be used to help define a small space, break it up or create interest. These choices, in effect, create other rooms. Your material selection adds further texture, thus making the space livelier.

• Water features such as swimming pools or outdoor water fountains. Swimming pools can be custom-made to fit into a small garden design. Also outdoor water fountains can be used to good effect in small gardens. Water features create movement and pleasant sounds, both elements that heighten your enjoyment of a landscape.

• Landscape lighting. Landscape lighting, in particular, can bring an element of drama to a small space. It is good to keep in mind that your landscape is viewed at night for about 30 percent of the time. Since so many people work and don’t come home until after dark, landscape lighting means homeowners can still enjoy their outdoor property, whenever they get home. It turns the landscape into a 24-hour event. Landscape lighting is also very practical as it provides security and nighttime lighting for any tricky steps.

• Infrastructure, like irrigation systems and drainage systems. Irrigation and drainage systems are the work-horses of Houston gardens. Sprinkler systems deliver water to plants during our long, intense summer months and drainage systems take away excess water when we get our infamous torrential rains. They save money, time and worry.

The Heart of Small Garden Design

Jeff Halper, landscape design specialist with Exterior Worlds, says, “The overall objective of any great landscape design, including small garden designs, is to create a space that breathes with the home and has a relationship to its surroundings. It should reflect the client’s visual desires and functionally work together in every aspect.”

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Butterfly Gardening

Tips For Creating A Butterfly Garden

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The vast majority of people, as far as I know, find beautiful flowers to have a certain aesthetic value. I personally find it very enjoyable to just sit and watch the flowers grow in a stunning garden. The only unexciting thing about watching a garden, which is perhaps what may be the very detail which I find so relaxing, is the monotony of the whole thing. There is really no action; but then again, when you are trying to relax, who wants action? The ideal garden would be a beautiful garden with just enough action on which to focus, but without enough action to eliminate the relaxing element of this non-activity. This is where the butterfly garden comes into play.


I would guess that anyone who enjoys looking at a garden also enjoys watching butterflies go about their tasks in a garden just as much, if not more. Butterflies are beautiful, harmless, and add a certain happy and lively look to just about any garden. The only thing stopping anyone from turning his or her garden into a butterfly garden is probably the fact that he or she does not know how to do it. Well, my friends, it is easier than you probably would have thought.


The first thing to consider is where to start your garden if you do not already have an existing garden. It is best to start your butterfly garden in a place that already has flowers, since the other flowers will help the butterflies find your butterfly haven. If, however, your butterfly garden is the most beautiful garden in the world, but it is in the middle of a huge grassy field, there will be no reason for any butterflies to be in the neighborhood, and will therefore not be able to find your garden. Therefore, it is always best to start your butterfly garden in a place where there are flowers already.


A butterfly garden should consist of a number of plants and flowers that attract butterflies. These plants and flowers should be a variety of colors and sizes. Lilacs and the like are good for attracting butterflies. The flowers should be colorful, bright, and fragrant and should, if possible, contain some sort of food for the butterflies. These kinds of flowers will help attract the butterflies and give them a reason to call your garden home. Butterfly Milkweed is great for attracting butterflies, since it has bright orange flowers, but more importantly, since it will provide food for the caterpillars. If there are no caterpillars, there will be no butterflies, so keeping the caterpillars happy is a good thing. You can ask a local gardener or check out research online which flowers that attract butterflies will thrive in your particular climate.


Ideally, your butterfly garden will have the ability to bloom all season long. There are many flowers and plants which will provide food for the butterflies and caterpillars throughout the spring, summer, and fall. For these too, you should either research or check with a local landscaper to see which flowers will blossom in the different seasons in your particular climate.


Your butterfly garden will need some sort of butterfly shelter and resting place for your winged friends. This should be a place where the butterflies and caterpillars will be able to rest and stay safe when the rain and cold come. There should be some flat rocks in your garden also where the butterflies can soak up the sun. It would really be perfection if the rocks had small indentations or craters in them where water could gather, thereby giving the butterflies a place to drink. You should also have a small log pile where the butterflies could go for shelter.


There are butterfly shelters that you could buy from a store, but I would recommend against these butterfly shelters. The reason is simply that the butterfly shelter will probably become a wasp shelter before long, which will only give the butterflies reason to stay away. Nobody wants to mess with a wasp.


The last and most important thing you will need to complete your butterfly garden is a good comfortable place for you to sit down and watch your butterfly garden “in action.” After all the hard work that you put into it, you certainly want the butterflies to enjoy the haven that you have created for them, but you clearly also want to be able to enjoy it yourself. After all, let’s be honest about it, you may love butterflies, but the reason for your butterfly garden is for you to be able to enjoy it.

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