How to Design a Small Patio Garden

The key to creating a small patio garden is to create a distinctive space between your backyard landscaping, and your patio itself. Making use of hard-scaping materials such as terracotta planters and flowerbeds and bringing some of your indoor style out into the area help to both mark it as an outdoor living space as well as a distinctive hard-scape centerpiece.

Items needed:

• Paper


• Pencil


• Camera or cell phone camera


• Terracotta or stone flower bed containers of varying heights.


• Terracotta or stone flower pots from the very large to small.


• Mild detergent


• Drainage stones or rocks


• Soft nylon brush


• Bucket of warm or hot  water


• Assortment of nursery flowers and foliage


• Paper lanterns


• Broom


• Gardening gloves


• Transplanter hand tool


• Potting soil


• Drainage sand


• Drainage dishes for flower bed and flower pots


• Outdoor rug or runner


• Concrete sealant and large paint brush- Optional.


• Outdoor pillows


• Strung lights or Fairy lights.

1. Sweep it clean. Use your broom to sweep the area clean. You want a fresh surface to work with as this will help make your garden contrast nicely against the stone of your patio flooring.


2. Wash your patio. Use a bucket of hot water, mild detergent and a soft nylon brush to clean the newly swept flooring. If you wish to keep stains from saturating the surface of your patio, you may wish to consider the use of a proper sealant. These can be purchased via your local home improvement store and are applied after the patio has dried for a full 24 hours from your cleansing. Be sure to apply the sealant liberally with a large paintbrush but do not allow puddles to form. Allow to dry for 24 hours before continuing.


3. Know the area. In order to plan a proper garden, it is important to take note of what you already have available to work with. This can not only save you money, it can save you frustration, as there may be some architectural elements that you must work around. Use your camera or cell phone to photograph the area from all possible angles to allow proper examination of the space. 


4. Know your zone. Everyone lives in a planting zone of one type or another. Knowing which plants will thrive in your zone is important to having a successful and lower maintenance garden. If you are unsure as to what your particular zone is, hop online and run a search on ‘planting zones’ to be presented with a list of websites catering to that information. Locate where you live and note its planting zone. This will tell you the best plants to use as well as the proper planting times for each, ensuring your patio color and vibrancy for most of the year. 


5. Draw out a few designs. Every great garden begins with a piece of paper and a pencil. Now that you know the space you have to work with intimately, take the time to draw out several potential designs for your garden. Ask yourself questions such as “can your patio furniture be moved around to accommodate different designs?” or “do you wish a path leading to your lawn and landscaping in your backyard?” Looking for a more continental design so that you can breakfast in the garden on cool mornings? These are all important questions to be asking as you begin to plot out where you would place your planters and hard scape flowerbeds.


6. Think about which plants or flowers would work best to achieve your look and will thrive in your planting zone. You can add a great deal of interest by planting various heights and different textures of plants together. If you have built in benches, consider placing very tall flowerbeds on either side of them and filling them with aromatic plants and flowers. If you want to provide added interest to the walls, consider mounted planters and statuary. Be sure you remember to outline and place plants along the edge of your patio to mark it as a separate space from your backyard landscaping, as this will create the illusion of an entirely separate space. If your patio has an arbor cover, think about either mounting small planters on them to give additional height to the plant life, or making use of very large urn shaped flowerpots in each corner and planting a twining vine that will climb the posts. If you’re looking for a path leading to the lawn, consider using an outdoor rug as a runner from your domicile to the lawn and using flower beds containing annuals of various heights to dress the path.


7. Take a trip to your local nursery. Not only should they have your plant material, they should also have the desired flower boxes and beds. Bring your garden plan along as well as a few sheets of paper and something to write with and take a tour of your local nursery to see what they have in stock. Not all plants will be in bloom at the time of the visit, so be sure to look at the plant tags as they will let you know how the plant looks in bloom. Now is when you begin to really plan that garden. Take note of your drawing and select plants that compliment each other in color, tone and varying heights to fill each of your demarked planting containers. Number the containers on your drawing and on a separate sheet of paper; list the plants that go in each container by number. This will help you avoid confusion and ‘double planting’ later. 


8. Purchase your plants. No one said you had to do all of this in a single go. Now that you know which plants you desire to fill each of your containers, purchase those readily available and most accommodating to your current budget. Having a numbered plan and list of where each plant goes both saves on confusion and money as it allows you to fill your beds and boxes over a period of time. If you have not already done so, pick up the coordinating planting beds for your purchases. 


9. Transplant your flowers. Put your gardening gloves on and place your flower beds where they belong then, according to your numbered plan, line your flower boxes or beds with the appropriate amount of drainage sand or stones at the bottom and fill each with the appropriate mix of potting soil. The flowers you plant together should all have similar lighting, watering and soil requirements to cut down on maintenance and failed growth. Be sure to read the care and transplant instructions for each plant to ensure a proper placement. A hand held transplanting tool is great for this task. 


10. Repeat as needed. Slowly begin to purchase and fill all additional flowerbeds and boxes according to your drawn design. In time, you will have a distinctive patio garden that provides color, scent and comfort more many months of the year. Adding small accents like outdoor pillows or strung lights and paper lanterns can provide an additional sense of style and flare as well.