A Design-Minded Solution to a Narrow Landscape

Here's the space before. When Lee purchased the house (he's its first owner) it didn't come with a finished yard.

Lee used a bit of visual trickery in the form of forced perspective to make the yard appear larger than its 500 square feet. "You can look at the garden from essentially three directions, from the inside looking directly out, and from the two long ends of the garden," he says. "If the garden was designed with orthogonal lines, you quickly get the sense of that it’s a small narrow space. By tilting the lines of the curb walls and step, you get a much different feel."

Eliminating right angles skews how one visually interprets the space. For example, the vanishing point here at the step makes the space feel very long once you pass through the gate.

"I think there’s plenty of missed potential in small compact spaces like these," Lee says. I see it in my neighborhood and other places in publication. People tend to think a small space is a small space and don’t try to do very much with it.

Horsetails occupy the raised planters. Lee used a darkly colored mulch to offset the light concrete, which gives the garden more depth.

Now, instead of being an under-used muddy pit, the reinvented patio—which was completed for $30 per square foot—acts as an extension of the interior. "We can now easily move our activities outside," Lee says.