How to Create a Small Yard With Big Impact

The walls of your house or an outbuilding present a perfect opportunity to grow a vertical garden of vines or climbers. Here, a 'May Queen' rose is trained across the facade of the garage, whose half-timbered details and door get the same green stain as the garden structures. Since roses don't cling by suckers or twining tendrils, as most vines do, they need to be tied to a supporting structure. In this case, heavy-gauge copper wire was strung through masonry eye screws attached to the building's stucco surface. Elsewhere on the property, ready-made cedar trellises are attached to the house to support more climbing roses, as well as clematis vines.

Virtually no space is overlooked as a gardening opportunity. A yellow flowering sedum mounds up at the base of the garage. Volunteer flowers grow along the driveway, and small violets and columbine bloom along the base of the retaining wall that borders it.