Ask Alan Titchmarsh

Catherine Mansley

Do you have a small garden dilemma that you’d love Alan Titchmarsh to solve? He’ll be answering readers’ questions about the challenges of gardening in a small space, in the May issue of Gardeners’ World Magazine. Post your questions here before 21 February, and we’ll put the best to Alan. Catherine Mansley, Features Editor Gardeners' World Magazine 

wild edges

How small does the small space need to be (question for you not Alan)?

Catherine Mansley

He'll be tackling everything from balconies to courtyards and small domestic gardens. We're not putting a defined size limit on what constitutes a small garden, as the hope is that as many readers as possible will be able to take inspiration from the questions and answers. So if your gardening ambitions are limited by a lack of space, we want to hear from you... 

wild edges

Thanks. I like the small garden features in the magazine there's always some really interesting and creative ideas used in them. Something that comes up quite often though is how to make the practicalities of gardens work with the aesthetic demands. Washing lines, storage and composters, that sort of thing. I'll try and come up with a proper question anyway.

arneil

how much space would be needed in a small garden for a witchhazel tree ? are there small varieties of them ?

treehugger80

always find it funny when gardening shows visit 'small' gardens and they're five to six times larger than mine, or they describe them in terms of 1/8th or 1/16th of an acre

madpenguin

I think there should be some definition as to what a 'small' garden is in terms of size.
Is 12ft square small or 50ft?
There are so many books on small garden design and none seem to be actually feature small gardens at all!!

Catherine Mansley

Out of interest, which would you find more off-putting: if I gave a maximum size for a 'small garden' that was much smaller than your own or much larger than your own?

wild edges

It's really hard to define though. Some houses have a large front garden and a tiny back garden, the plot might be big but the back garden could count as being tiny. Or you could have a tiny garden but a big area that's only useful for storage and things like that but which other tiny gardens don't benefit from.

My garden is probably counted as medium size but it's broken down into 4 areas which are all fairly small on their own. I treat them as separate gardens and they all have their own space challenges.

madpenguin

Catherine Mansley said:

Out of interest, which would you find more off-putting: if I gave a maximum size for a 'small garden' that was much smaller than your own or much larger than your own?

No,I would not be put off by being given a maximum size.The problem is that size is relative.
I consider my garden small but it is considerably bigger than my last two,but also much smaller than where I grew up.
Having a maximum size gives you more of an idea of the space people actually have.

Dovefromabove

Maybe there’s ‘small’ and ‘tiny’ ... my last one was a a tiny inner city back yard no bigger than my dining room.

This one is about the size of a tennis court and still seems small. 

 I once had one that was the size of a couple of tennis courts but that seemed small compared to another place I lived which was 9 acres. 

Its all relative ... so actual measurements might be a good idea. 😊