Better Homes & Gardens Small-Space Gardens

Beautiful gardens don’t require a big yard or massive property. Even balconies, patios, decks, and rooftops can house stunning plants and gardens. This issue focuses on pockets of space and inspiring examples of what gardeners can accomplish there. Filled with easy projects, plant recommendations, hardscape solutions, and more, the issue will help any gardener create a beautiful garden no matter where they live.

Editor’s Letter

Better Homes and Gardens

8 Strategies For Small-Space Gardening • THESE SOLUTIONS will help an area feel more expansive and rescue any tiny or narrow piece of land or hardscaping.

Room For Outdoor Living • A California designer shapes the property surrounding her 1950s bungalow into a series of outdoor rooms to draw her family outside.

How To Design & Care For A Container Garden • A CONTAINER GARDEN can be more than a line of pots along front steps or a planter on either side of a door. It can invigorate small areas by softening edges, creating texture, establishing a color scheme, or instilling a sense of privacy.

The Welcome-To-My-House Garden • THIS FRONT YARD skillfully combines curb appeal with functionality and scale.

Smart Plant Choices For A Vertical Garden • VERTICAL GARDENS—think living walls—are one of the hottest garden trends and yet they are one of the oldest (have you ever grown a vine on a fence or trellis?). Bringing plants upward is a superb solution for just about any garden—indoors or out.

Private Haven • Longing for seclusion in your backyard? We’ll show you how to turn an open deck and patio into a smart and appealing hideaway.

Contain Your Excitement • INFUSE BIG IMPACT into your garden using fuss-free shrubs in movable pots.

Style & Substance • A YOUNG COUPLE combine their creativity with horticulture to lift their plants and make a limited garden space all their own.

Tomatoes In Pots • PORCH-, PATIO-, AND BALCONY-FRIENDLY, certain tomato cultivars thrive in containers. Follow our planting tips and you can expect to harvest sun-ripened fruit for several weeks this summer.

Small Trees Play A Big Role • A FAST-GROWING TREE was ruining this Oregon backyard. The fix? More trees—but this time, the right ones.

Edible Garden With A View • Smack dab in the center of the city, one Boston foodie takes a potager to her rooftop.

Petite Powerhouse • OUTFIT A LESS-THAN-LARGE deck or patio with outdoor products that celebrate the diminutive and won’t overpower their compact environment.

Just Berries • CULTIVATE a luscious landscape that provides loads of fresh, healthy berries even when space is at a premium.

9 Ways To Make Your Side Yard Sizzle • INFUSE blooms, intriguing foliage, and even edibles, into the overlooked places along the sides of your house and reap more space for landscaping victories.

Tropicals For Impact • SMALL SPACE + BIG PLANT = HIGH DRAMA Celebrate hot weather with the bold, graphic foliage of plants from the tropics.

Small Garden, Big Impact • A SEATTLE HOMEOWNER makes the most of every inch of her tiny lot, and in doing so, she cultivates abundant and inviting outdoor spaces, artfully leading the eyes to her home and modern shed.

Plants In Suspense • Use hanging baskets and window boxes to elevate plant containers on balconies, patios—or on the house itself.

Maximizing Space • Two garden pros show how much is possible in a small urban space.

Bite-size Backyard • A young family makes the most of their small slice of the city—cultivating a cool backyard leading to raised beds of edibles.

6 Ways To Create Outdoor Privacy • TIRED OF FEELING LIKE you’re in a fishbowl every time you go outside your home? Or maybe you’d like to avoid looking at those nasty weeds next...