Long, narrow garden. In need of inspiration

[Standy5050]

Hi everyone.

I have a mid terrace property with a very narrow garden - it's 5.5 metres wide and 24 metres long. There are plans in place to build a large garage at the end of the garden, a cherry blossom tree smack bang in the middle and a patio next to the house I wish to keep. The rest is a blank canvas!

Have any of you had to deal with the design problems thrown up by a long, narrow garden like this? If any of you have advice, or even better, pictures from past projects, I'd really appreciate a bit of inspiration. I'm stuck!

 

[Thermo]

post a photo and ill give you some suggestions

 

[Standy5050]

Untitled

• Standy5050
• 2 Feb 2010
• 1

Untitled

• Standy5050
• 2 Feb 2010
• 1

Brilliant, thanks! Here are a couple of photos of the garden. There will be a large garage which spans the width of the garden which comes up to where the grass currently starts at the far end, if you see what I mean. The fence and gate will be gone. I'll need to access the house from the garage every day, so the path is quite important - though I don't want to make it seem more narrow by cutting it in half! Any advice gratefully received!

BTW it's SW facing. The sun hits the bottom of the garden in the morning and the patio you can see at the bottom of the picture late afternoon/early evening.

 

[LeadFarmer]

First, decide which plants you want to keep, and get rid of any you dont like. Theres no point keeping plants you dont want to see.

I dont know how to edit photos otherwise I would mark out how I would do the following..

I would also reshape the lawn. Personally I would shape the lawn into a long 'S' shape, creating curved boarders on each side. The lawn would resemble a really wide sweeping path.

In the middle border I would create some height with plants so the view to the end of the garden is partially blocked. This creates some interest, rather than being able to see the whole of the garden from the house.

If you are intending to walk to the end of the garden frequently, then this could cause the lawn to wear. You could overcome this with a stepping stone path in an opposite 'S' shape, so the path goes over the lawn and into the boarder, before emerging back onto the lawn further up the garden.

You could also plant something like a white stemed Birch tree at the bottom of the garden, to draw the eye to the end of the garden and make you want to explore further. I would also put a trellis on the new garage walls and grow some climbing plants to help hide the garage.

If I could edit your photo I could draw on it so you would have a better idea of what I mean.

Hope this helps