I sway back and forth between wanting a larger garden and one that is smaller and more manageable. A larger garden would offer the chance for my longed-for greenhouse, a timber framed, green-roofed shed and room for a cluster of raised vegetable beds. A smaller one, on the other hand, would allow me the luxury of being in control. An option that seems ever more tempting.
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My main garden is small and rather typical of the long, thin ‘shoe-box’ spaces that go hand-in-hand with living in an urban terrace. Unusually, the house also benefits from a tiny, sunken basement garden at the rear. Barely four metres square, it sits several feet below the principal garden. It is, I think, rather charming. Protected by high walls and a micro-climate due to a conveniently sited Aga outlet, it has always felt like a separate garden and is treated as such.
Watch Nigel Slater give a tour around his garden
On a bad day, when the main garden is a bit of a mess, awash with fallen leaves or browning to a crisp through lack of rain, I often seek sanctuary in this basement space. The floor is of old red bricks. A zinc-topped table sits squat in the middle, stacked with terracotta pots of narcissi in spring and swaying cosmos and ferns in summer. A vast tree fern hangs over it like a green umbrella.
One wall is home to a climbing jasmine. With a little help from a handful of wires, it has formed a canopy over the table, offering enough shade for a cluster of potted ferns. Pelargoniums wriggle their way invitingly up the small staircase to the main garden. Wisteria clambers up the remaining wall. Only one side of this basement space has any sort of border and it is a slim one, about 50cm wide, that is taken up with a climbing Hydrangea petiolaris and a bushy Pittosporum tobira.
A small garden can be a tiny, sparkling jewel, a paradise of pots, pergolas and planters. With less space between them, plants can jostle one another and live in a romantic tangle.
I have never felt frustrated by the size of this ‘second’ garden. In fact, I celebrate its diminutive dimensions and have the sort of fondness for it one might have for the smaller of one’s two cats. The cosiness appeals and its high walls make it feel like a safe space, but there are other reasons to love this little garden. For once, I feel in control. I can reach the rampant tendrils of the wisteria and trim the climbing rose; I can clean the gutters and prune the overhanging fig without endangering life and limb. Down here in the basement, I am on top of the slug problem and can tame my neighbour’s marauding Russian vine. There is not a weed in sight. Perhaps a smaller garden is the answer.
If this were my only space, I would still be a happy gardener. No matter how diminutive a patch I may have, I would still be able to plant my ‘must-haves’. A small tree – an acer perhaps or a crab apple. A rose for the walls, though more ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’ than ‘Rambling Rector’. And I would make sure there was room for some sort of potting table. My own is barely a metre long, tucked in the corner of this basement space and is quite invaluable. What my smaller space might lack in square meterage, it would make up for in height, with every wall stacked with climbers and tall, swaying tree ferns.
There is a certain appeal in the idea of letting a small garden develop into a bit of a jungle too. An illusion of space created by many layers of shrubs and perennials.
Everything that is wrong with my larger, long, thin garden would be put right if I were to have only a smaller space. There would be no room for ‘the plant hospice’ (it would force me to be ruthless with ailing shrubs) and there would be nowhere to put the half-open bag of compost that migrates around the place according to where I last used it. I could also put paid to the endless temptations of nurseries and garden centres because I know that there really is no room for yet another rose.
A small garden can be a tiny, sparkling jewel, a paradise of pots, pergolas and planters. With less space between them, plants can jostle one another and live in a romantic tangle. Plants so close together would be a haven for pollinators.
There is a certain appeal in the idea of letting a small garden develop into a bit of a jungle too. An illusion of space created by many layers of shrubs and perennials. Banana palms and bamboos to push aside as you walk, cannas and dahlias on different levels, plants that are tall and lush and can turn a small square of outdoors into a little forest. My own tree fern, Dicksonia antarctica, has grown, albeit rather slowly, over the past six years or so, and now stands a good two and a half metres tall. The trunk and the pot it stands in takes up little space but the effect of the huge shuttlecock canopy gives you something to dip under, again increasing the illusion of space.
I am probably not the only gardener who tries to pack a quart into a pint pot. This little basement garden has barely a centimetre unfilled, but that lends a joyous feeling of abundance. To replace this glorious green clutter with one specimen plant – an acer perhaps – is tempting but could end up exaggerating its minuscule measurements. A small space is an opportunity for some imaginative thinking. Plants, plants and more plants seems to be the way to go.
Listen to Nigel Slater on our Talking Gardens podcast
To take a guided video tour of Nigel Slater’s small London garden, watch above or head to the Gardens Illustrated YouTube channel.
