| Part 4 Why Small Gardens Need More Thought, Not More Plants When a small garden doesn’t feel right, the instinct is often to add something. Another plant. Another pot. Another attempt to “fill the gap.” The problem is that small gardens rarely lack plants. They suffer from a lack of clarity. In compact spaces, progress comes not from adding more, but from thinking more carefully about what’s already there — and what the garden is actually asking for. More plants often create more problems. In a small garden, every new plant changes the balance. Light shifts. Airflow tightens. Access becomes harder. Maintenance increases. What once felt manageable is now fiddly and demanding, even though the garden is technically fuller. This is why small gardens that are constantly added to often feel restless. There’s always something that needs cutting back, moving, rescuing, or replacing. The garden never settles because it’s never allowed to. More plants don’t automatically mean more beauty. Quite often, they mean more work and less calm. Thought creates structure where plants cannot. Plants are flexible, living things. Thought provides the framework they need to behave well. In a small garden, thought shows up as: Clear decisions about where planting stops and space begins Repeated choices rather than constant variation Accepting what won’t work instead of forcing it Designing for access, not just appearance Without this thinking, plants are left to compete. With it, they support one another. A small garden with clear thinking behind it often looks simpler — but functions far better. Overcrowding often begins with good intentions. Most overcrowded small gardens didn’t start out that way. They grew crowded slowly, through reasonable decisions made in isolation: A plant was kept because it “might come back.” Another added that the border looked bare in spring. A third squeezed in because there was just enough room Each choice makes sense on its own. Together, they create pressure. Thoughtful gardening means stepping back and looking at the whole picture — not just responding to what’s in front of you at that moment. Thinking ahead reduces future effort. One of the quiet advantages of thought-led gardening is that it reduces how much work the garden demands later. When plants are spaced for their mature size, borders don’t need constant correction. When plant types are limited, maintenance becomes predictable. When access is considered early, jobs stay small rather than becoming disruptive. In small gardens especially, thinking ahead is a form of kindness — to the garden and to the person maintaining it. Fewer decisions make gardens calmer. Decision fatigue is real in small spaces. When a garden contains too many plant types, styles, and ideas, every visit requires dozens of small judgments: what to cut, what to leave, what to support, what to ignore. Over time, this becomes draining. A garden built on fewer, clearer decisions is easier to live with. Maintenance becomes familiar rather than overwhelming. The garden begins to feel supportive instead of demanding. This is one of the reasons repetition and restraint matter so much in compact gardens. Thought allows a garden to evolve, not unravel A well-thought-out small garden still changes. Plants grow, seasons shift, and priorities evolve. The difference is that change happens within a framework. Without thought, change drifts. With thought, change leads to refinement. The garden improves rather than unravels. Adding less is often the most effective move. In small gardens, the most productive decision is often to pause. To observe before acting. To remove before adding. To ask whether the garden needs another plant, or simply more time. Thought doesn’t mean inaction. It means choosing actions that move the garden toward stability rather than short-term satisfaction. In the next post, I’ll look more closely at one of the most practical consequences of this approach: gardening when storage is limited, and why small gardens work best when they’re designed to fit real lives. Because a small garden done properly isn’t built on accumulation. It’s built on understanding. |
The Small Garden
Earthly Comforts 