Don't move, improve: how to transform a small garden into a fuss-free space that looks good all year round

As London property prices fall at their fastest rate for nine years, there’s never been a better time to stay put.

Recent research by insurance firm Hiscox has found that the number of people carrying out major home improvements has increased fivefold in the past five years, as people add value by extending not just into the loft but also the garden.

But an unavoidable consequence is a smaller garden. Throw in the havoc caused by cement mixers and you are left with a smaller space that looks like a herd of elephants just stampeded through it.

Property writer Ruth Bloomfield has just finished adding a rear extension to her north London home. Expanding her kitchen and living space has reduced her south-facing garden to 21ft by 10ft.

She asked her builders to do the hard landscaping but, apart from a lonely pear tree, the beds are empty and the fences bare, while a neighbour’s outbuilding visually dominates the space.

Ruth is desperate for plants to soften the paving, but has little clue what to choose, what it would cost or where to buy. All she knows is that she wants lots of low-maintenance white flowers, and a garden that looks good all year.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” she says. “Left to my own devices I’d merrily buy potted weeds.”

CALL IN THE EXPERTS

We asked two former alumni of the London College of Garden Design, now running successful London practices, to come to her rescue with a planting scheme to turn her little plot into heaven — by next spring.

SCULPTURAL FORM, SOFT TEXTURE: SHEILA JACK

Former art director of US Vogue and UK Harper’s Bazaar, award-winning Sheila Jack suggests bringing the garden to life with predominantly evergreen planting softened by the movement of grasses and flowering perennials.

She would place two large containers planted with mature yew domes to link the upper and lower levels and introduce round shapes to stop the space feeling boxy. This bold idea introduces drama.

To distract from the neighbour’s outbuilding, she suggests planting a multi-stem tree, such as the beautiful white-flowering dogwood tree (cornus kousa chinensis) in the bottom right-hand corner.

To soften the paving boundary, Jackson suggests lots of Japanese forest grass, teamed with glossy evergreen groundcover from European wild ginger and little Mexican daisies.

In the beds, these low shapes would be contrasted with spikes of actaea, a haze of delicate white-flowered Gaura and the soft grass Pennisetum “Fairy Tails”.

In March, Jackson would recommend adding plug plants of cow parsley-like Ammi majus to inject “frothy transparency”, while a carpet of bulbs would include snowdrops, daffodils and black tulip “Paul Scherer”.

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GO NATURAL AND WILD: COLM JOSEPH

Envisaging a simple but strong look with a sense of wildness, Colm Joseph concentrates on low-maintenance plants, going for star jasmine (trachelospermum jasminoides) on fences, plus trees to distract from the building next door.

He suggests two Malus “Evereste” crab apples. This great small London tree has abundant white spring blossom, autumn colour and stunning red fruits that cling even when the leaves have fallen.

Birds love them, too, or the fruits can be made into crab apple jelly.

Joseph would put one of the trees in the corner, with the other halfway down the garden against the fence to balance the pear tree opposite. In the beds, he suggests “billowing, airy planting”.

Korean feather reed grass (Calamagrostis brachytricha) would jostle with pink asters and Gaura to create a soft, inviting atmosphere around the dining area. The grass keeps its structure deep into winter.

Bulbs, from snowdrops through to elegant white narcissus “Petrel”, mean there would be something new and exciting to look at every month.

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