Landscape beds can have a many functions, in addition to providing beautiful surroundings for an outdoor living space. By using vertical elements like an obelisk, it’s possible to create a small sense of privacy.
This raised plant bed is in our Mom’s backyard. It had been built years ago, and over the years it seemed to have accumulate many plants without any type of plan or order. We aren’t sure what was originally planted in it years ago, but recently it contained an array of landscape plants from one-of-a-kind shrubs to perennials and bulbs. The plant bed is right next to the patio, so it was important to her to have a design that provided visual interest.
If you’re hunting for a few landscape ideas for small spaces, maybe this one will inspire a solution.
This is the wall previously while it was being repaired.
Previous to installing any landscape plants, the retaining wall needed to be repaired because of poor drainage behind it, which was causing structural problems – in this case, it kept falling over in a forward direction. You can read here for how to prevent this.
After the repair was made, we now had the chance to remove (and relocate when possible) all the existing plants and start from scratch, which can really give you a fresh perspective. There were some old, inexpensive landscape lighting fixtures in the plant bed that were removed, also.
Before
The Design
This sketch shows a layout of the design and explains a little about the intent of the design. Obviously, the design was created to enhance the views from the patio, and make it a more enjoyable outdoor space. We used four different plants in the design:
- 10 – Green Velvet Boxwood
- 1 – Clematis ‘Candida’
- 10 – pale yellow marigold annual
- evergreen myrtle groundcover
Small space landscaping idea sketch
We wanted to give the far end of the plant bed some height by using both the obelisk with the clematis as a focal point, and as an enclosure to enhance the sense of privacy to the patio space. This was reinforced by curving the boxwood around the back of the obelisk and into the curve of the wall (see photo above).
The raised garden wall gave added height, along with the obelisk, to help screen outside views. The wall also provided interest with it’s sweeping curved profile.
In the photo below, are the beautiful obelisk and the clematis that were used to create a focal point. The clematis blooms from spring to early summer, and again from late summer into fall.
When the boxwood matures, it will be maintained as a low clipped hedge. The edge border is myrtle and it will be maintained as a clipped 5” wide border.
We dressed the entire plant bed with a dark brown-black mulch that gives the ground surface a uniform appearance and provides a contrast to the plants to help make them ‘pop’.
It is all newly installed, and has some growing to do yet. We will update with a photo later on when the plants start filling in.
Also, in time, we are going to add a vertical element to the back of the raised bed against the blank wall of the house for an added accent.
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