Small-Yard Secrets: Maximizing 1,500 Square Feet in Oakland

Landscape architect Tomi Kobara wanted open areas and intimate nooks from her Oakland backyard makeover — challenging at barely 1,500 square feet. She started with an overall plan for structure, flow, and focal points, then let the garden evolve.

Originally: a studio shed in the far corner of the wedge-shaped yard, a concrete patio, and large lawn. Kobara created a private sanctuary behind the studio, cut the lawn roughly in half for family picnics and play, and surrounded the remainder with richly textured beds of desert spoon, euphorbias, honey bush, salvias, sedum, yucca, and colorful perennials.

The concrete patio needed warmth, so she replaced it with recycled brick set in sand. Blue-green pots cool the red trellis on the shed wall. A raised vegetable bed spans the brick patio edge.

Happy Surprises Through Sustainability

Recycled materials led to delights: a neighbor's old playhouse became a secret garden with former concrete driveway pieces as stepping stones. "The more we reuse and recycle, the fewer resources we deplete."

Judges for Sunset's 2007 Dream Garden Awards honored it for best use of a small space.

Tips for Designing a Small Space

• Locate living areas everywhere. Side yards, shaded corners, sunny spaces — Kobara uses a deck plus four other outdoor living areas.
• Create garden rooms. Define needed functions; separate with foliage, low fences, or varied paving.
• Integrate the rooms. Connect spaces with paths and stepping stones for flow.
• Use found objects as art. Old SF Water Department cistern covers become art underfoot among recycled bricks.

Design: Tomi Kobara Landscape Architect, Oakland (tomiskye@gmail.com)

Resources: Recycled brick from This and That, San Pablo (510/232-1273). Potting table from Urban Ore, Berkeley (510/841-7283). Metal rack from Rockridge Rags, Oakland (510/655-2289).