Boxing clever

How to make your small garden look bigger

Classic meets contemporary in an inner-city terrace, where small spaces become a series of "rooms" that offer pleasing vistas and functional versatility

This inner-city terrace belongs to a busy young couple with one small child. They wanted to rework their street-facing front area and backyard. The brief for the front was quite simple: to create a garden that complemented their classic Victorian terrace and harmonised with the neighbouring houses. But it had to have an edge, some much-needed pizazz.

Once I had established that the front garden served no functional purpose other than to get the clients and their visitors from the gate to the front door, I was able to start designing. The front garden measures approximately 5m x 6m and has a beautiful mature jacaranda, which I wanted to retain. Its asymmetrical form gives the tall house a soothing scale and is, psychologically, a green buffer that makes the house appear further from the street than it really is.

Aesthetic constraints were my only consideration for the front garden design and I had three priorities. First, the garden needed to connect with the age and style of the home, so I had to create a classic garden. The ornate house details, namely the tessellated tiled veranda and Victorian steel picket fence, were features I wanted to work with.

Secondly, the new garden needed to match the house in its boldness. Thankfully, the established jacaranda was able to assist with this, but I wanted the new planting to be bold and yet simple. Lastly, I wanted a contemporary edge so that even though the bones of the garden had classic influences, onlookers would know that a young couple lived here.

I decided on a traditional square shape with four scalloped corners. I chose cream gravel to define the hard surface and provide a distinct contrast to the plants. Surrounding the gravel is a bold border of Japanese box, which reinforces the square shape and forms a strong colour contrast. To continue the stimulating contrast, a scallop-shaped mass of box centrally breaks up the gravel. Metal edging separates the gravel from the garden so the transition is crisp and seamless. A Camellia sasanqua hedge surrounds the low garden on three sides so the space becomes an outdoor room that can be viewed from the house. The focal point is an antique urn overflowing with blue echeveria, placed in the middle to accentuate the curve and line contrasts.

In the back garden, functionality was the drive behind the design. The clients required a lawn for their child, a hidden car space, an entertaining area, the sound of water to add ambience, and effective screening from neighbours. My challenge here was that all these practicalities had to fit into a space that was only 5m wide by 12m long.

I decided to break the garden into three levels. Each represents a different function and is reached by two sets of steps. From the back door of the house to the rear lawn, the height drops down approximately 1.6m. On the house level, flush with the internal living spaces at the back, I created a narrow hardwood deck that gives a strong connection between the internal and external areas. The deck was also wrapped around one side of the house, where pots of tall conifers against the neighbouring wall soften the imposing impact.

Three generous timber steps now give easy access to the paved entertaining area and the deck wraps around the north side of the paving to form a bench for casual seating. The deck, bench and steps have all been faced or clad vertically with timber boards, so all three elements are unified and seamless.

The reconstituted stone pavers were deliberately chosen in a large format to make the entertaining area appear larger. At the back edge of the paving, a 1300mm-high, single-sided horizontal timber structure screens the car when it’s parked on the lawn below. When the car is not on the property, slats allow glimpses of the garden beyond, making the courtyard seem bigger and not enclosed. A series of three ornamental pear trees breaks up the paving and screen behind, reinforcing the courtyard flavour. The canopies are raised so the garden glimpses beyond are not obscured. These trees form strong vertical lines that take the eye upward and make the space feel bigger again.

An existing frangipani was retained and is treasured for its natural umbrella in summer and ability to let sun stream in from the west in winter. A second slatted timber screen, parallel to the first, sits 3m further on. This directs the eye deeper into the garden, enticing viewers to explore. Even though the garden is small, dividing its spaces into a series of rooms like this and providing glimpses of enticement has made the overall space seem larger. Behind the second screen and bench, a row of Magnolia ‘Little Gem’ provides fragrant coverage. Massed liriope runs along the south side of the paving, forming a neat grass-like texture. Behind the liriope, clipped star jasmine forms a dense privacy screen.

In the third and final section, or room, of the garden, timber retaining walls have been covered with more star jasmine and grass rings created with a soft-leaf buffalo. This suits the backyard’s dual-purpose of being a child’s play area and somewhere for cars to park occasionally.