CHOOSING PLANTS FOR IMPACT

Keeping certain guidelines in mind when it comes to what you grow can be a great way to maximise your space

LIMIT YOUR PALETTE

Rather than limiting your plant selection, do so with your colour palette. Picking a single shade is a simple, yet effective, trick for giving coherence to a small border. It also helps your planting look considered and ‘designed’, as this striking scheme shows. Plus, it’s a useful aid if you feel overwhelmed by choice every time you make a trip to a nursery or garden centre – having a single hue in mind ensures you make a beeline only for the plants that fit into your colour story.

REPETITION RULES

A useful planting device in small gardens is to stick to a certain number of plants, then repeating the same ones over and over to give an illusion of abundance. This works especially well with a grouping of containers – planting them up for seasonal colour allows you to move them in and out of view as they come to their best before dying back. Cyclamen are great for late winter and early spring colour. They don't mind shade and like free-draining soils, so don’t let them become waterlogged.

TALL STORY

Traditional border planting dictates that taller varieties go at the back and you then plant forward to the shortest varieties at the front. It’s perfect common sense, but you can mix it up by interspersing the middle zone with tall feature plants such as these glorious alliums. Slender and elegant, they not only draw the eye upward, but are a useful addition to narrower beds that might not have room for trees or tall shrubs. They look most effective planted in generous clusters.