Help with my tiny urban garden

sam.mackay5

I would love some ideas for what to do with my very small London garden (see image).

- Left-hand side is south-facing and gets the sun until mid-afternoon.
- Right-hand side is basically full shade 8 months of the year
- Currently have an odd assortment: a camelia, a fatsia, a young dwarf palm, star jasmine.
- What I want is year-round foliage on all/most sides, a sense of lushness to make things cosy, with enough space in the middle for the table/chairs. Do I need to move the beds? Add raised ones? Shelving or hanging baskets? A small tree e.g. fig?

I'd love any suggestions at all. 

KeenOnGreen

Looks very similar to my previous garden, also in London.  There are plenty of shade loving shrubs that would help fill up your right-hand border, and these could be interspersed with perennials/ferns and other shade loving plants.

If you don't want to rip up the paving, to create new beds on the back or left-hand side, then your only option is to go with pots and troughs, the bigger the better if you want sizeable/lush planting, and less watering to do.  You can use taller plants (Clematis, Jasmine, Bamboo, etc) to give you some height, and to cover the fences.  Personally, I would paint at least one of the fences, to create some contrast.

Our previous garden only had one narrow bed, down one side of the garden.  We filled the rest with pots and troughs.  I'm including some before and after pictures so you can see what is possible.

BEFORE

AFTER


BEFORE

AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER

sam.mackay5

@KeenOnGreen Thanks, I love this - the acers and the blue-grey wall achieve so much there.

KeenOnGreen

@sam.mackay5   Beware Acers, they are lovely plants, but very temperamental.  We have lost most of ours over the years, and wouldn't buy any more.  The blue-grey wall was achieved by covering our fence with marine plywood, which we then painted with masonry paint.  Large hardware stores can mix this for your in hundreds of colours, you don't just need to stick to the small range of colours that branded paints offer (Ronseal, Cuprinol, etc).

delski

Love seeing before and after pictures like that. Fab job. I think the plywood idea would work well in the OP's garden since the fence at the back is uneven (and that would annoy me ) and different panel types on each side. Marine plywood doesn't sound cheap but I suppose that's ok for London budgets.