How do you provide privacy, variation, and color in the small garden?
How do you plan for a small patio and living area, a children’s play area, a place for laundry and garbage cans, and space for a vegetable and cutting garden all in the small backyard?
These are questions frequently asked by the small homeowner.
In many sections of the country, we find neat, attractive little houses set on small lots — with many of the houses just alike.
The problem is to give your home individuality while providing adequate work and living space, all with a degree of privacy to be entirely useful.
To help you solve your backyard problems and to show the many possibilities, even on small lots, we have made plans for three similar lots.
The lots chosen for this study are each 40’ feet wide and 110’ feet long. The houses are identical—26’ feet wide, 27’ feet, and 6″ inches long.
Passage to the hack yard is through a side door that connects, through a hall, to the living room and the kitchen. In addition, the garage of one property has been enlarged to give more work and storage space.
Privacy Is Important
Privacy is of first importance in all city lots. Where the lots are small, the problem is often acute.
Where all houses are set the same distance from the street, the windows of one house look directly into the windows of the adjoining houses, and when one steps into the backyard, one can see several other lots.
Use A Simple Wooden Fence
A fence is the most practical method of obtaining privacy where space is limited. A simple wooden fence of vertical boards, pickets, or grape stakes makes an ideal screen.
Several years ago, I lived for a while in a small-homes development in California. When we first moved in, it was necessary to keep the blinds drawn most of the time.
A large dining room window of our house looked directly into a window of the adjoining house.
We solved the problem by placing a 6-foot picket fence on the property line and planting two slender evergreens at one side, with some flowers at their base and along the fence.
Strip Of Hedge For Complete Privacy
Just beneath the window, we planted a strip of the hedge, clipped to windowsill height. Not only did we obtain complete privacy, but our dining room looked out upon a gardened area.
This beautiful, sunny composition changed from the previous gloomy atmosphere caused by a half-closed Venetian blind. A 6-foot fence is the best height for level lots.
The 6-foot height should extend from the front of the house on one side to the rear, across the back, and up the opposite side to a point even with the front of the house to give complete privacy to your property.
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
If the fence is extended to the front of the property, a height of 2’ to 4’ feet would be more desirable from the front of the house to the walk.
In farming communities, there is an old that says—“Good fences make good neighbors.” Certainly, it is even more true among small homeowners.
A fence is not unfriendly. On the contrary, it benefits your neighbor’s property as much as your own. Often the cost is shared by adjoining property owners.
Planning The Backyard
Once you have obtained privacy, you can begin to plan the backyard for different uses.
You must first decide just what activities will be provided for. Your backyard should be tailored to the needs of your own family.
Each of the 3 lots shown here has space for outdoor living, play, vegetable and cutting gardens, a drying reel, and garbage cans.
Locating The Outdoor Living Area
Since an outdoor living area should be located as near the living portion of the house as possible, it has, in each case, been located directly back of the house.
This way, you can easily take your guests from the living room to the outdoor living area.
With the garbage cans screened from view by a wooden screen, supplemented by shrubs, the entire distance from the living room to the outdoor living space can be a pleasant walk.
Another advantage of locating the outdoor living area near the house is to have it as near the kitchen as possible in the event of outdoor dining.
Locating The Vegetable Garden
The vegetable garden and cutting area should be located where the soil is good and there is plenty of sunshine.
Although it should not be too far from the kitchen, this is not a factor on the small lot. Playspace should be so located that the mother can keep an eye on the children.
If small trees are used in the plans, the play area can be seen from the kitchen window or the outdoor living area.
The tall fence at the back of the property makes it necessary for children to pass the house in leaving the backyard.
Pavement Of The Living Area
Sometimes the pavement of the living area is also used by children for tricycles and other toys.
Asphalt or smooth concrete may be used rather than brick or gravel if this is done. The play space should have shade.
If a tree provides, it should be located so as not to cast shade on the vegetable garden or flower beds.
Careful Planning Is Necessary
The space given over to outdoor living will require careful study, but such study need not be difficult.
Many small gardens are as beautiful and useful as large gardens. It’s careful planning that makes them so.
Of course, you cannot have spacious lawns and massive shrub borders where space is limited.
You can, however, have beautifully composed garden views, adequate living space, and space for specimen shrubs and trees.
How The Garden Will Be Used By The Family
When you plan your garden, your first consideration should be to decide just how your family will use the area.
You’ll want a paved space to use the garden soon after rain and keep from wearing out the grass. This should be connected to the house by walking or stepping stones.
Arranging Of Composition
You can then arrange compositions of flowers, shrubs, and small trees in the garden so that the entire area is attractive.
Since your grounds are already bounded by a fence, preferably of simple design, you are not concerned with wide shrub borders but can choose only those shrubs and flowers you like.
Color Is Important
First, choose the color of your fence. On small grounds, this is doubly important.
Remember that bright colors like white will make your grounds seem smaller, while receding colors, like gray or brown, will make the area seem larger.
Many people like white, but on the small lot, it would be best to use a small area of the white fence.
Neutral Colors
Neutral colors like gray or brown are excellent background colors against which you display flowers or flowering shrubs.
Berried shrubs and vines are especially beautiful against a gray fence. Unfortunately, green is not a good color for a fence.
Since the pavement will be an important part of your garden composition, its color should be chosen with care.
Red Pigments
Many beautiful patios are made of red brick. Brick, though, has a rough texture and might not be suitable if children will use the area extensively.
Concrete, colored with red pigment, gives a smooth surface, yet has an interest. Asphalt edged with red brick would be more suitable for garden use than asphalt without the brick.
Brightly Colors
If you have chosen neutral colors for the framework or background of your garden, you’ll now want to spark the entire composition and give it life by choosing brightly colored flowers, shrubs, and garden furniture.
In planning your flower borders, remember that a small amount of yellow or white can balance much larger amounts of blue and red.
Plenty Of Contrast
You will want plenty of contrast, but your garden will be more beautiful and in better taste, if you use large masses of any one color rather than choose a spotty arrangement.
The garden plans shown here may or may not exactly fit your grounds and your needs, but we offer them to show the many possible arrangements.
Outdoor Living Area As An Outdoor Room
The idea is always to fit your grounds to your own family’s needs.
Think of your outdoor living area as an outdoor room—then fit it with pavement, lawn, flower beds, and choice shrubs so that it is an interesting place to sit, read, talk, or dine.
But remember that it is not some foreign idea superimposed upon your grounds.
Instead, it should be something developed for your reasons to meet your own family’s needs—a plan expressing your way of life.
44659 by Herschel W. Weber