small garden design tip 2

On of the most effective ways to make your garden look bigger is to use your neighbours yard. This is what we call borrowed landscape. Im not saying extend your yard into the neighbours, but if your neighbour has trees in their yard, by hiding your fence with plants you can give the impression that those trees are actually in your yard, making it look bigger.

Small garden design tip 1

These days most people have relatively small gardens, but alot of people would like to at least provide the illusion that their garden is bigger than it actually is.

One way to help provide the illusion of size is to keep it simple, and by this i dont mean put a narrow garden bed around the fenceline. Keep it simple by not planting too many different varieties of plants. This idea works especially well with alot of modern buildings with their simple clean lines.

walking down the garden path

Paths in the garden get you from a to b but it is important when thinking about putting in a path that you consider what it might be used for.

Gravel paths can look good but if you have a deciduous tree over it they can be hard to keep looking nice. They are also noisey to walk on which tends to make people walk faster over. It is also much harder to push a wheelbarrow on and if soil preperation is not good weeds may be an issue.

Sawdust is a material that i think is great for paths, especially around veggie patches. It tends to pack down well suppressing weeds and making it easy to push that wheelbarrow and if you decide to change the layout of your veggie patch you can just dig it into the soil. It is also good for a meandering path that people can walk slowly along as it is not too hard under foot and is quiet.

Pavers are just about a category to themselves as there are so many different types available. I might do another post on them specifically but for now, pavers are a good hard wearing path, especially good for entrances and high traffic areas. They take abit more preparation than gravel or sawdust but i suggest you do the right preparation, especially if you have a large area to do. The last thing you want to do is have to relay it every year because it has moved or sunk. Pavers do give a nice clean look though.

Concrete is the last type i will mention for now but personally i would use pavers over concrete any day. When i say concrete i mean a continuous slab of concrete too not concrete pavers. Like pavers concrete is hard wearing and good if you have vehicles driving over them but if you decide in the future to alter the path at all it is hard to do and costly.

There are other factors to take into concideration when making a path these include: Underground services (which may need to be dug up or inspected)
Plants along the edge or adove (which may stain or litter the path as well as lift pavers or concrete)
amount of traffic
type of traffic (relating to width of path)