Advice or ideas on narrow garden landscaping, partitioning and dealing with a raised patio

Hi all,

My garden is a narrow rectangle. Around 5.5m wide and 25m long.

Immediately out of the back door of the house there is a patio which is full width (5.5m) and about 4-5m in length.

We go down some inset steps about 1.2m in height to the lawn area, which is about 3.5m wide by 9m long and bordered by 1m wide planting borders.

Beyond the lawn is an area of slabbing before 2 sheds, and at the very bottom of the garden a mature maple tree about 10m in height, and rear access gate.


The garden is very narrow, and the current lawn is a simple rectangle bordered by narrow plant borders.

The house and patio is at a higher elevation than the rest of the garden, giving a feeling of always 'looking down' on the garden and being exposed, rather than feeling enclosed and private. It feels like the patio is 'on' the garden, not 'in' the garden, if that makes sense.

There are some trees and plants in the borders but again the narrowness has prevented any significant height or canopy being obtained here. Even a moderately sized tree is going to fill half the width of the garden in canopy, and of course we would also potentially create problems putting even moderately sized trees near the boundary line.

There's nothing breaking up the length of the garden, so from the patio we can see right down to the end.

There is a new apartment block (3 stories) being constructed at the land behind our garden (about 35m away to the new building), and I'd like to try and obscure the view of this as much as possible. Unfortunately the developers have removed some of the trees you can see in the picture below, when they were meant to be retained as part of the planning permission. So some of the screen to the new building no longer exists.



I'd really appreciate some ideas on how to solve this. I need to do something with the patio, so its not 'looking down' on the rest of the garden and doesn't feel so exposed. Potentially this could mean some raised beds to try and partition the patio off from the garden, or actually excavating the patio downwards to the level of the rest of the garden, so its more 'inset'. That would require the steps down to be much closer to the house though.

And then the rest of the garden, needs to remove the long thin feel by creating some partitioning and height, and trying to block off the view to the new apartments at the rear.

I'll attach some photos.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

Plantminded's photos are a good illustration on breaking up a long narrow plot into smaller areas.
I would recommend you think about removing the paved path directly under the patio walls and planting some shrubs that would grow tall enough to help shield the patio - you don't necessarily need trees.
Then perhaps divide the remainder into diagonal areas with a paved path following the lines. This would give you the opportunity of having larger areas of planting interposed with diagonal areas of lawn(s).
See if you can get hold of a copy of Alan Titchmarsh's book on Garden Design, he has some brilliant ideas, well illustrated.
Good luck

 

The classic soultion to this is a zig zag or winding path which gives difefrent widths of borders and lawn with a few focal shrub/trees and/or trellis panels covered with climbers so the eye cannot see the whole length at once.

Diagonal lines make a garden appear wider and the resulting beds give plenty of space for adding height and texture to the planting for year round interest.

 

Thanks for the replies.

The patio is the main sticking point for me currently. Because it's elevated above the rest of the garden, it feels so exposed. I'm looking down on the rest of the garden, can see over neighbours fences. Any plants I do put in the main garden, my eyeline is above them even whilst seated.

I do need to segregate the main garden, but because of the patio I'm still going to see straight over the top of whatever I do.

 

My garden runs the other way from the house @Dan1981 , and the house is also elevated. I understand how you want to feel more enclosed when on your patio - I don't have one as my garden is now gravelled, so I can sit in several areas, but the easiest way to make it more private is a simple screen or two. That can be trellis or something you make yourself with battens, and it can be 2 dimensional, or you can make it a pergola.
I created a simple privacy screen when I first did this garden as it borders the pavement and there's a fair bit of foot traffic at times. Two posts, vertical roofing battens, and I added a couple of raised beds - one at each end for shrubs/climbers etc. This year, I changed the section of garden that runs from the house to the back gate, and made a pergola, which mirrors that screen - 4 posts, vertical battens etc, and the bench is in there, which also provides privacy. The planting each side will gradually cover it too.
How easy it would be depends on whether you can do it yourself, or if you need to get someone in, but the initial work would involve lifting some of the paving for doing posts, or, if they're nice and sound, you can get brackets which bolt on for putting in the posts. You can then use large containers, or build some, for putting in planting to cover it.

 

I can do the work myself, even hard landscaping and building new walls. I just don't know where to start.

 

Here is one of my plant borders, on the right hand side of the lawn looking down the garden.

There is a low wall which was there before, and I have fitted trellis to it to provide more of a barrier to the neighbours garden (and to stop our dog jumping over).

There is an existing Camilia, which Ive tried underplanting but everything just dies.

The Laural on the far right is now gone, I didn't like it (too dense) and it was horrible to prune.

We have the higher plants, but nothing in the middle so it looks so bare. How can I improve this so it looks 'full' and layered.

 

Hi Dan, you will need to make the width of the bed wider so you can plant the new perennials forward of the existing taller shrubs to get more light and more moisture from the soil. Flower beds ideally should be at least 1 metre wide or more where space allows. In your situation you could enlarge that bed in wedge shaped sections at intervals to allow more space for planting if you didn't want to enlarge the whole bed.

 

Thanks. The bed is already at least 1m wide, maybe 1.2m. I can make it wider but at the expense of losing some lawn. We only have 3.5m width of lawn so not alot to lose if we want to keep it.

As you can see from the image, there are some trees already but nothing 'in the middle' at waist height. I want some structural shrubs too not just perennials which will go to nothing in the winter.

When you say wedge shaped, do you mean some triangles protruding further into the lawn? I did experiment with curves at one point, it didn't work as there just isn't the width to make a nice large radius curve.

It might help if I do a full plan view with dimensions. I'll work on it.

 

Hi Dan, if you want some structural shrubs you are going to have to cut larger areas out of the lawn as there just won't be enough space so yes, I did mean triangles protruding into the lawn. That way, you can keep larger areas of the lawn in between the triangles.

 

The best solution is to remove a large part of the existing patio, and then replace the wall/steps, leaving a section about 1.5 metres depth along the back of the house. I'd put steps at one end, but the most important thing is something that's currently missing, and that's a handrail. That's a serious drop to the lower level and would be illegal up here, for obvious reasons. If you have young children, that would be a must have.
However, removing that quantity of material [soil/rubble] would require several skips and decent access. Maybe around 20 odd cubic metres of material to get rid of, even if you kept the paving and bricks etc for redoing the wall and then a new patio at lower level.
Screening, using the ideas I gave earlier would be much easier -two right angled sections - one each side of the steps, and they would also become the safety handrail/barriers at the edge.

 

While I am curious to learn what you wish to do in your garden that might incense your neighbours (!) , I think that you have more privacy than many, especially when properties are built to modern density standards.
Regarding the new development, did you object to the application?.Were your neighbours in support ? If the application relied on retention of established trees which have subsequently been removed (possibly without consent ) then you might prevail upon the local authority planners to require replanting/screening to restore your privacy. You do not have a right to a view ,but 'overlooking' is a planning ground, perhaps not significantly at 35metres...
However, your greatest loss of privacy is from the adjacent properties hence my initial remark.

 

@infradig thanks,

I just sit in the garden, and enjoy working in it on nice warm days. Nothing untoward, I just don't like feeling overlooked or exposed. And I want the garden to look 'full' with layers and height etc, but also still get the sun.

The new development - would be alot to cover in full but in summary yes, representations were made about the trees, yes it was committed to that they would stay, and now they've been removed I'm in contact with the affected neighbours and also with the developer and hopefully in due course the planning officers (contact attempted but no response as yet). Objective now is to get some replacement trees done as part of the site landscaping, that's the best we can hope for.

 

Our patio is approx 1m above the rest of the garden but doesn't extend as far. Our garden is shorter and wider but not much. We have a second small seating area lower down so we can sit "in" if we wish. I quite like being able to see from above, but we have such dense planting it doesn't feel exposed on the main patio. I agree about making the bed(s) wider. Ours are 2m on one side and a bit less the other. Not having it symetrical helps remove the "runway" effect. Pics taken just now so looking a bit scruffy but you can get the idea


Bed to right is below patio, ahead is right side of main picture.

 

If you can, present yourself at the offices, armed with two spare copies of your correspondence. Doubtless they are 'working from home' but give the copy to reception and get a signed acceptance receipt on one copy, dated and timed , as evidence. Play their game if you wish to win. It never hurts to remind them that they work for you !