Designing a Town Garden: Outdoor Rooms, Planting, and Climbers

The Town Garden

Every square foot of a town garden counts. Reduced air pollution means many now enjoy conditions a country garden might envy. Cities raise ambient temperatures and lower humidity—the latter easily remedied on a small scale, while warmer winters are invaluable.

An Outdoor Room

Sun is at a premium due to high walls and buildings, dictating design. Even with virtually no sun, an attractive garden is worthwhile—think of it as a cool evening sitting-room after work. Being outside on a stifling summer day is restorative.

Small size means every inch must work. Treat it as an enclosed courtyard terrace with no exit; “views” are created by interesting plants on walls or carefully arranged objects. A wall painting or white-painted trellis in false perspective creates an illusion of space. A view from a window or door should appear to lead somewhere or end decisively. A wall-mask dripping water into a shell is a classic, delightful focal point.

Town dwellers crave grass, but a minute lawn in shade is a mistake—shade-adapted grasses die out, annual meadow grass takes over, and the result is a mess. Hard surfaces are the only alternative: paving and brick for walking/sitting, cobbles or loose gravel for contrast around planted areas.

Planting

Good permanent planting gives year-round texture and body. Leaf shape and outline often matter more than flowers, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

Camellias are superb town plants except in the coldest spots. Lustrous evergreen leaves, tidy habit, heavy autumn buds opening to luxurious flowers make them invaluable. They work as wall plants (tie back branches) and come in colors from white to dark blood red. They demand acid soil; if not natural, a raised bed with lime-free soil and peat is a good investment. Modern Camellia × williamsii hybrids are especially lovely, with single flowers of delicate dog-rose grace. They tolerate full shade and flower; only hot, dry spots should be avoided.

Climbers

Few climbers are self-clinging. Virginia creeper reaches great heights but is deciduous; so is climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea petiolaris). Ivy in all its forms—green, gold, variegated, large- or small-leaved—is the most valuable plant for town garden walls. Contrary to myth, ivy doesn’t harm sound walls, though it enters cracks like any climber.

Other climbers need permanent support: wires for twining (summer jasmine, wisteria) or trellis for clinging (vines, clematis). On white or color-washed walls, repainting is tricky when climbers are in the way. Solutions: let plants furnish the “room,” or use wires on hinged battens that swing down for painting.

Covering the Ground

At the climbers’ feet, a mix of shrubby and herbaceous plants should achieve complete cover—soil is a growing medium, not an aesthetic experience. Summer color comes from containers of annuals: scented tobacco plants, petunias, stocks, unusual pelargoniums (marvellous town plants, often surviving London winters), and fuchsias.

Few roses suit town gardens mixed with other plants—they become leggy and look dreadful in winter. Climbing roses get out of reach and are hard to train/prune. An exception: thornless Rosa banksiae on a south-facing two- or three-story house, cascading small double yellow flowers in May–June.