The garden with no room

Nine hundred square feet, a garage taking a third of it, four feet of 1920s basement spoil under the whole thing, and a family of four.

We found a car bumper. Four feet down, under what had been sold to the previous owners as topsoil, along with brick, plaster and a quantity of clinker. This is not unusual on the inner east side and it is the single most common reason a small Portland garden underperforms.

Excavating all of it was not affordable. What we did instead was excavate the two planting beds properly — down to four feet in the tree pit, two feet elsewhere — and build the rest of the garden on top of the fill rather than in it, as a raised terrace.

A small garden gives you nowhere to hide, so everything in it has to work in at least three seasons. There is nothing here that is spectacular for two weeks and dull for fifty.

Across 8 years

Every frame is labelled. The build photographs are in here too, because the fortnight where a garden is a trench is part of what you are buying.

Looking down on a worker in a yellow hard hat standing in a narrow trench, driving a spade into the exposed soil wall, with survey tape running along the ground above. — Build, week oneThe last of a drain run goes in by hand. A bucket cannot tell the difference between a root and a rock.

Small ferns and moss growing along the length of a leaning tree trunk, rooted in the bark itself rather than in the ground. — Year three, DecemberLicorice fern growing on bark rather than in soil. It appears in winter and does the tree no harm at all.

A worn earth path running uphill between dense banks of ferns, under thin birch trunks with a mossy rock outcrop at the right, in flat overcast light. — Year five, AprilNot a garden. This is what the region does unaided, and most of our plans are an argument with it.

A narrow stone path almost swallowed by planting — ferns arching in from both sides at knee height and tall white umbels of flower leaning over the stone, in soft green light with no direct sun. — Year seven, JuneThe fern layer has closed over the mulch, but you can still read the path edge and the individual plants.

Planting plan1" = 5'

Key — drawn at mature spread

ACC×1Acer circinatum — vine maple
VAO×2Vaccinium ovatum — evergreen huckleberry
POM×2Polystichum munitum — western sword fern
ASC×1Asarum caudatum — western wild ginger
HEH×1Helleborus × hybridus — Lenten rose
TIT×1Tiarella trifoliata — foamflower
SEA×1Sesleria autumnalis — autumn moor grass
MAN×1Berberis nervosa — Cascade Oregon grape

Solid outlines are evergreen. Dashed outlines lose their leaves — which is what a plan should tell you before you build it, not after your first winter.

The ground, and the water

Four feet of 1920s construction fill. Beds excavated and replaced; terrace built over the top rather than into it.

Hand watering. On nine hundred square feet an irrigation system would have cost more than it saved and given them one more thing to maintain.

What we would do differently

We specified a multi-stem vine maple where a single-stem would have given more usable space beneath it at head height. In a garden this size that is a real loss, and it is our error rather than the client's brief.

The backbone of the planting

ACCAcer circinatumvine maple18 × 16 ft at maturity
VAOVaccinium ovatumevergreen huckleberry6 × 5 ft at maturity
POMPolystichum munitumwestern sword fern3.5 × 4 ft at maturity
ASCAsarum caudatumwestern wild ginger0.6 × 4 ft at maturity
HEHHelleborus × hybridusLenten rose2 × 2.5 ft at maturity
TITTiarella trifoliatafoamflower1.2 × 1.5 ft at maturity
SEASesleria autumnalisautumn moor grass1.5 × 2 ft at maturity
MANBerberis nervosaCascade Oregon grape2.5 × 3 ft at maturity

Yours would be drawn the same way.

A measured base plan, a planting plan at mature spread, and a written note on what the garden will look like in year one so that nothing about the first winter is a surprise.

Start a design See the other gardens