making a small garden appear larger Archives

The home garden can be landscaped to add enormous value to your home without spending a fortune to achieve it. It is more than just adding street or kerb appeal to your front yard garden, but also the illusion of making a small garden appear larger.

How do you renovate a front yard for your home?

The first step is to sketch and annotate your ideas on a sheet of graph paper. Our 5 top tips to begin with are the following;

Check the health of your current plants and remove any that look a bit unhealthy.
Any plants that are losing their shape should be pruned back hard.
If you have any grey wooden fences, repaint them a dark colour like dark grey.
Plant suitable screening plants around the edge of your garden.
Repair any defects in garden paths, decks or other garden structures.
Decide on your home garden focal points
Hide the less attractive parts of your garden with climbing plants and trellis.

What should I plant in my front garden?

If you are living in a heritage home in one of the Melbourne inner suburbs, a cottage style garden will be in keeping with your home. Many of these are low maintenance eco friendly gardens which will save on water.

Front yard garden beds for home gardens

You can make your garden appear larger by planting flowers with warm colours like yellow, red or orange in the foreground close to the viewpoint. In the background plant cooler and softer tones like blue, purple, pastel pinks and whites.

Use of Colour in the home garden. Using warm and cool colours to make your garden appear larger.

Small front garden design for home gardens

Plants for this style of home garden could include the following;

Dwarf Lemon scented gum.
Magnolia Little Gem.
Dwarf Lilly Pilly – Acmena Smithii Minor
Crepe Myrtle
Diaosma instead of turf

Larger front yards

Pittosporum ‘Siver sheen” (Large tree or hedge.)
Lilly Pilly – Acmena Smithii
Italian Pencil Pine

Use the taller plants towards the outside of your garden.

Our top garden design tip here is to trees with numerous small leaves. This will help to create the illusion of space in a small garden. For example, Pittosporum ‘Silver Sheen” English yew tree. A large hedge of pittosporum Silver sheen will help to screen out the neighbours and make the garden appear larger if you grow it along the fence line. If you are not planting a hedge, aim to have plants at various heights to draw the eye up and down.

Garden Focal points for your home garden

What is focal point in Landscaping?

In landscaping a focal point is a point of interest in a garden that helps the eye rest naturally. The garden focal point will create an interesting destination for garden visitors to move towards.

Does a good landscape need a focal point?

A garden focal point will draw the visitor’s eye to a particular location in the garden. It can help to create the illusion that your small garden is actually larger than it is. It will also encourage visitors to move through the garden as well as help create visual balance in the front yard.

Potted urn on a pedestal

A Garden focal point could be a potted urn on a garden pedestal surrounded by lavender plants. Lavender also looks good with Terracotta pots.

Concrete garden pot on a concrete pedestal. A garden focal point where the garden paths cross.

Home Gardening Landscaping ideas. A concrete urn on a concrete pedestal with concrete pavers leading to the focal point.

Garden arch focal point.

An impressive welcome to your front yard garden can be provided by a flower covered garden arch. By using fragrant climbing plants on the garden arch, a sensory experience can be provided for your visitors. The garden arch over a brick pathway will fit in well with cottage gardens or Melbourne heritage gardens. As a focal point, the garden arch draws the eye up and around the arch.

Garden Arbor or arch with climbing plants.

Pergola walkway with wisteria

Garden water feature focal point ideas

A water feature makes a great focal point in any garden and is also good for wildlife.

Garden Pond Ideas

Garden Ponds should be located in partial shade to limit the growth of algae. If algae is a problem in your pond, then a harmless black dye can be added to the water. Garden ponds should be located as flat location as possible. If you are building your own pond, make sure the excavation is free from stones and roots then line the hole with sand before putting in the butyl liner. This will extent the lifetime of your pond liner. Newly built concrete ponds will have a high PH, so wait for this to stabilise around 7 before introducing any fish to your garden pond. In and around your pond use a planting mixture of water lilies, floating plants and some native grasses around the outside.

Home Garden – Koi Fish in a tranquil pond

Water feature fountains

If your front yard garden is a Melbourne inner city heritage garden, you may have some issues with traffic noise. A front yard fountain will help to disguise the traffic noise as we as add tranquillity to your garden. There are designs to suit modern gardens as well as heritage gardens and Japanese gardens.

Stone water feature in the style of a Ryoan Ji temple with rounded river pebbles a stone lantern. Fantastic use of foliage colours with white flowers.

Garden Sculpture Focal Points

Garden Sculpture focal point with a curved garden hedge.

Soft landscaping Focal Points for your home garden.

The focal point can also be a beautiful shrub or tree. Choose a small tree that will have year-round interest. So attributes to look for would be long flowering periods, a beautiful shape or interesting foliage. If you choose a deciduous tree, make sure it has interesting bark and place foliage plants around the base.

Soft landscaping focal point. A White Crepe Myrtle in a home garden.

Disguise less attractive areas of your home with trellises and climbing plants.

If you have an area you would like to hide, build a trellis or brush fence. Use climbing plants like clematis, climbing rose or star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) to break up the view of the fence.