Landscape Design
Are You Doing These 6 Things to Make Your Yard Feel Smaller?
See how landscape pros avoid common design mistakes to achieve beautiful, functional yards that maximize their space
Want to make your yard appear larger? Start by avoiding the following design moves that may make it look and feel even smaller. There are plenty of misconceptions about how to make the most of a compact yard, whether it’s forgoing trees or keeping the entire space open.
Read on to discover some of the techniques favored by landscape designers on Houzz to stretch a small space. We included examples of designs that successfully avoided these six mistakes to achieve beautiful, functional yards that maximize their square footage.
Read on to discover some of the techniques favored by landscape designers on Houzz to stretch a small space. We included examples of designs that successfully avoided these six mistakes to achieve beautiful, functional yards that maximize their square footage.
2. Overlooking Trees
Worried there’s no space in your yard for a tree? Don’t be. Many of the petite plots on Houzz have more than one, and the right tree in the right place can draw the eye up, adding a sense of height, as well as privacy and enclosure. Trees can also attract wildlife and provide shade — for you, but also for plants needing reprieve during the hot summer months.
But what is the right tree for a small space? One that grows slowly so as not to dominate the space, looks good across the seasons (everything in smaller yards needs to work hard, as there’s little to fall back on) and has small roots, according to designer Patricia Tyrrell.
Her picks? Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida, USDA zones 5 to 9; find your zone) is a slow-growing option that looks good in both spring and autumn. She also suggests olive trees and multistem birches.
8 Trees Landscape Designers Love for Small Spaces
Worried there’s no space in your yard for a tree? Don’t be. Many of the petite plots on Houzz have more than one, and the right tree in the right place can draw the eye up, adding a sense of height, as well as privacy and enclosure. Trees can also attract wildlife and provide shade — for you, but also for plants needing reprieve during the hot summer months.
But what is the right tree for a small space? One that grows slowly so as not to dominate the space, looks good across the seasons (everything in smaller yards needs to work hard, as there’s little to fall back on) and has small roots, according to designer Patricia Tyrrell.
Her picks? Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida, USDA zones 5 to 9; find your zone) is a slow-growing option that looks good in both spring and autumn. She also suggests olive trees and multistem birches.
8 Trees Landscape Designers Love for Small Spaces
3. Making a Feature of Your Fence
A feature fence, devoid of plants and gleamingly bright in tone, can be a real space shrinker. The reason? It highlights the one thing you want to minimize: your boundaries.
Blur your yard’s boundaries, perhaps by painting the fence black, as seen in this design by Jilayne Rickards, and they’ll feel further away (and your yard, magically, larger). Cover perimeter fences in climbing plants and they’ll, quite literally, disappear.
Shop for patio furniture on Houzz
A feature fence, devoid of plants and gleamingly bright in tone, can be a real space shrinker. The reason? It highlights the one thing you want to minimize: your boundaries.
Blur your yard’s boundaries, perhaps by painting the fence black, as seen in this design by Jilayne Rickards, and they’ll feel further away (and your yard, magically, larger). Cover perimeter fences in climbing plants and they’ll, quite literally, disappear.
Shop for patio furniture on Houzz
4. Creating a Wide Open Space
Even the smallest, boxiest yard can become a haven through which you can enjoy meandering. And a meandering route is something that comes up time and again in the plots we talk to landscape designers on Houzz about, because if there’s a sense of intrigue, there’s also a sense of more space than you might have.
Take this design by Georgia Lindsay by way of inspiration. Its layout cleverly confuses the eye, inviting you to wander through rather than stride straight across. The striking, staggered screen breaks up the view, allowing just a glimpse of the seating area at the back.
The planting design also reworks the classic rectangle of lawn with beds on either side. Instead, Lindsay has designed two key beds that jut into the middle of the space and overlap to create a stepping stone path that turns, encouraging you to take your time on it.
Even the smallest, boxiest yard can become a haven through which you can enjoy meandering. And a meandering route is something that comes up time and again in the plots we talk to landscape designers on Houzz about, because if there’s a sense of intrigue, there’s also a sense of more space than you might have.
Take this design by Georgia Lindsay by way of inspiration. Its layout cleverly confuses the eye, inviting you to wander through rather than stride straight across. The striking, staggered screen breaks up the view, allowing just a glimpse of the seating area at the back.
The planting design also reworks the classic rectangle of lawn with beds on either side. Instead, Lindsay has designed two key beds that jut into the middle of the space and overlap to create a stepping stone path that turns, encouraging you to take your time on it.
5. Sticking to Right Angles
Another trick for visually enlarging a small outdoor space is to play with angles. As with building in a meandering path, this idea can turn a see-it-all-in-one-glance rectangle into something visually intriguing.
Here, a design by Bright Green Garden uses decking planks to create unlikely angles, and it’s almost impossible to see a rectangular plot with these defining the space. The beds at the back of the yard are triangular, emphasizing the effect.
10 Common Landscape Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Another trick for visually enlarging a small outdoor space is to play with angles. As with building in a meandering path, this idea can turn a see-it-all-in-one-glance rectangle into something visually intriguing.
Here, a design by Bright Green Garden uses decking planks to create unlikely angles, and it’s almost impossible to see a rectangular plot with these defining the space. The beds at the back of the yard are triangular, emphasizing the effect.
10 Common Landscape Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
6. Not Taking Advantage of Borrowed Landscape
If you’re not making the most of your yard’s surroundings — and have the opportunity — then do so. This urban plot looks epic thanks to the foliage in surrounding yards and beyond.
Whether you have a rural property with fields beyond or a site where you’re boxed in by other yards, a clever designer will be able to maximize surrounding views and greenery and draw it into your own space.
The space is blessed with lush foliage all around and designer Emma O’Connell has deliberately created a blurred boundary between what’s here and what lies beyond, on all sides.
Also, perhaps influenced by the tropical feel in the landscape next door, O’Connell hasn’t shied away from big, bold, jungly plants and lots of height. Both can feel like counterintuitive choices when faced with a small space, but you can see how well they work here.
If you’re not making the most of your yard’s surroundings — and have the opportunity — then do so. This urban plot looks epic thanks to the foliage in surrounding yards and beyond.
Whether you have a rural property with fields beyond or a site where you’re boxed in by other yards, a clever designer will be able to maximize surrounding views and greenery and draw it into your own space.
The space is blessed with lush foliage all around and designer Emma O’Connell has deliberately created a blurred boundary between what’s here and what lies beyond, on all sides.
Also, perhaps influenced by the tropical feel in the landscape next door, O’Connell hasn’t shied away from big, bold, jungly plants and lots of height. Both can feel like counterintuitive choices when faced with a small space, but you can see how well they work here.
While this lovely small space, designed by Arthur Road Landscapes, is packed with plants and flowers, it looks calm rather than chaotic. How? Study it and you’ll see a classic landscape design trick at play: repeat planting.
To give any landscape a sense of unity, designers tend to choose a limited palette and selection of plant species. The sense of order this creates — and, case in point, that certainly doesn’t mean sterile or grid-like — makes a space feel more spacious.
Why? Think about designing a small room to feel bigger — put in too many competing colors, themes and pieces and it can quickly look cluttered and, as a result, smaller. The same goes for landscape design.
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