How to Create the Perfect Small Garden

Help!  How do you create the perfect small garden?

With the heatwave hitting the UK (and taking us all by surprise) Simon and I have been spending some time in our small garden and have very quickly realised that despite moving into our home two years ago we've done absolutely nothing with our outside space and it's beginning to make us feel a bit sad.

When we bought our house we purposely picked one with a south facing garden and I was so excited at the idea of spending Summer evenings outside. Having lived in a flat with no garden for years we couldn't wait to finally have somewhere to enjoy our Summer days.

So why on earth have we not done anything with it yet?

Probably because we are completely and utterly clueless!  How on earth do you go about creating a perfect garden when your space is pretty tiny and you don't have a clue about plants or landscaping?

We've got as far as pinning lots of pretty gardens on Pinterest and browsing Engelbert Strauss for equipment.  As we find hardware stores intimidating it's been great being able to find all that we need from the comfort of our sofa, Simon's been in his element building up his tool box which has pretty much given me a free reign to indulge in my favourite kind of gardening - buying beautiful alfresco plates from John Lewis, I'm a little obsessed!

So we're making it our mission to at least think about what we can do with our space so we can finally enjoy our small garden the way we had always intended to.  Here's just a few ideas on how to create the perfect small garden but I'd really love to hear yours, we need help!

Climbing Roses

My Grandad had an amazing rose garden which I loved playing in when I was growing up and my Dad has some pretty impressive displays himself. Every time we go back home to Norfolk Dad likes to give us some advice on what to do with the garden and we are feeling pretty inspired to maybe plant some climbing roses to go up the fences at the back of our garden. It'd be lovely to finally inject some colour.

Bench of Memories

Simon's Nana passed away recently and as she loved spending time in her garden we've had a few discussions about maybe getting a little bench for our garden in her memory.  Somewhere where we can sit and enjoy some peace and quiet.

A Lady Shed

I've been so inspired by my friend Michelle's amazing lady shed. She spends hours sitting away in her beautiful little hideaway, drinking wine and reading books. Although our garden is small maybe putting a shed in it would be a good feature especially if it was as cute as Michelle's!

Flamingo Time

Simon is probably going to think I'm a little strange when I mention this to him, but I quite fancy some of these decorative flamingos in the garden! I think it's all those years of wanting to go to the Kensington Roof Garden that's done it.

Planters and Baskets

With our lack of gardening knowledge I'm thinking that perhaps planters and baskets are the way to go. Surely less hassle than attempting to create a flower bed, I quite like the idea of hanging baskets on our fences and having nosed into a few of our neighbours gardens this seems to work quite well.

If anyone else has a small garden and has managed to do something fantastic with it I'd love to hear all your suggestions. In the meantime I'm guessing we should probably start hunting round the garden centres for inspiration instead of just burying our head into the cakes!

This is a collaborative post but all thoughts on small gardens are my own!