At long last I’m going to be able to start planning and implementing a design for our tiny back garden.
Nearest the house there is already a terrace and I may add another line of tiles. Then I will have a winding path of remaining tiles to back left hand corner where there is a gate. I want these tiles to go through an archway part way down the garden and I’m wondering how far down the garden to position the archway.
My gut feeling is not half way (a bit like a horizon on 50% in a photo - thirds are better). So, those of you good on design, grateful your thoughts please.
Should the arch be a third of the way down the garden, or two-thirds? Bearing in mind I’m looking for an optical illusion that gives the feeling the garden is longer.
Is this any good Sue : I asked the question of Chat GPT : how can you make a small garden seem larger. Their answer is:
You can make a small garden feel much larger with a few clever design tricks:
Use fewer, larger elements: One large planter or feature often looks less cluttered than many small ones.
Create clear zones: Divide the garden into areas for sitting, planting, and walking, but keep the transitions subtle.
Use diagonal or curved paths: They make the eye travel farther and can make the space feel deeper.
Keep the centre open: Put plants and furniture around the edges rather than filling the middle.
Choose light colours: Pale paving, walls, and furniture reflect light and create an airier feeling.
Plant vertically: Climbers, trellises, and tall narrow plants add greenery without using much floor space.
Use mirrors carefully: A weatherproof garden mirror can give the illusion of an extra section of garden.
Create layers: Put low plants in front, medium-height plants in the middle, and taller plants toward the back.
Blur the boundaries: Let some plants overlap walls or fences so the edges are less obvious.
Keep furniture compact: Built-in benches or slim furniture can save valuable floor space.
A particularly effective trick: Make the garden slightly narrower toward the back, with progressively smaller plants and paving. This creates a forced-perspective effect, making the garden appear deeper than it really is. And they gave me this example :
Arches fool the brain into thinking there’s something beyond as much as change perspective. But your plan looks about right
Your limit is making sure you have two useful zones - once you go through the arch you don’t want to end up in a dark corner with a shed. So 3 metres from the shed is probably your best compromise.
The big trees behind - if your screen hides the fence - they become a “part” if your garden visually and stretch it a tad. I’d stick a small cherry or Acer in the corner next to the shed - it sort of blends with the big trees behind
I can’t be the only one to have spotted that the “Before” and “After” images are of different locations!
Yes, handle with care and don’t trust it farther than you can throw it, but I think @SuePJ has some useful pointers. I’ve seen mirrors used, as suggested.
I think @Rachel05 's friend had the right approach, the first picture seems much longer but would not be affected by some adornment of those strangl.y posed fences (did you have the old man the other side propping them up? )
I predict well deserved exciting times for you both.
And do not let us down by avoiding further photos.
Just my two cents as a garden design student (really more as a way to practise my design thinking than to give advice!)
To answer your question directly, I’d definitely place the arch around the two-thirds mark rather than halfway.
I don’t know whether you’re planning to keep the shed at the back, but a curved path leading through the arch towards a destination that’s only partially revealed would reinforce that feeling of more depth. Even better if that destination is a “coin détente”, with a small table and a couple of chairs.
I think elements of a cottage garden would work well with both your layout and your ideas: A winding path would allow for at least one beautiful mixed border up to the arch, giving a greater sense of volume with layered plants. This would also leave a more open space beyond the arch (for the shed/work area, or a cosy coffee corner). Adding a small tree there, as someone suggested, could help soften the transition with the taller trees in the background.
This is quite a small area, so you can’t “wind” much as would be irritating as would cut across the desire line to go from A to B directly. Edge of border could suffer. One needs to draw a straight line from A to B and then shape a curved path around it to give the impression of « winding » . Many things look great on plans, or manufactured visuals but just don’t work in real life (said as a landscape architect).
Plans for our garden in Chichester stalled when we were there in September, as we spent most of the fortnight suffering from Covid. So I’m going back there in November hoping to make real progress while the soil is warm and we’ve had rain.
Your comments have been useful, thanks. And before I fell sick, I did measure a typical sized arch and realised it would take up more than half the width! So, I googled “tiny gardens”, threw out most of my ideas and realised I needed to keep it all very simple. I’m hoping to turn this…
My wife has been using ChatGPT to help with our garden design. She uploaded a sketch of our garden with measurements and a couple of photos from different sides of the garden. She then asked ChatGPT to make recommendations for the design, answering questions from CGPT. CGPT then produced a number of pictures which were then altered to meet my wife’s ideas. CGPT also produced a overhead perspective of the garden, recommending plants suitable for the climate here.
All in all, it saved us a lot of work and time. We’re using it to get quotes from landscape gardeners.
Thank you for your suggestion. I’ve already a pretty good idea of what I want in the way of layout and plants and I’ll be using someone just to rearrange the tiles, remove the grass, paint the fences and shed black and plant the large shrubs in November when I’m there. Given where we’ll be - a very sheltered garden in Chichester - I’m taking back a lot of my ideas from SW France - not least, the way the French are brutal with their pruning! To great effect.
I realised when I first started down this path that I wanted to design my own garden, not have someone else do it for me - not even ChatGPT who is some circumstances is my NBF.
I’ll take ideas from elsewhere, but not delegate. I’ve been creating gardens since 1984. Usually they evolve over years and they tell me what they want to be. The only difference this time is that I’ll be 80 next year and so I’d quite like to have the garden ready and mature more or less straightaway.
I’ve got so many large shrubs in pots and ones that I could dig up that I could usefully plant in Chichester - large shrubs in the UK are a horrendous price!
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