10 Space-Saving Garden Ideas Perfect For Your Small Yard

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You dream of having a flourishing garden with all your favorite plants and flowers, even a space for a vegetable garden. You'd walk through each section, taking particular care to water and nourish them, making sure they have everything they need to grow and thrive. But when you step out into your small yard, you simply can't imagine how to make it work. If your limited space is making you feel like your garden dreams are impossible, we have some space-saving ideas that can help. These tips are the best way to make the most out of a small backyard or wherever your little slice of land might be.

Before you get started turning your small yard into a garden dreamland, it's important that you plan what you want to plant, as well as where and how you're going to do so. Planning ahead will help you use space wisely, allowing you to utilize all the space-saving garden ideas, like a trellis, hanging or stackable planters, and gardening methods like the square foot garden. You can start with a pencil and paper, sketching out ideas for your garden. Then measure your actual space and mark where everything will go. Try one or two (or 10) of our small yard gardening hacks to piece it all together.

A leaning garden trellis is a versatile tool for maximizing space. They lean against a wall, garage, or house, so there's no drilling or building that needs to happen, making them easy to use. These trellises come in various sizes and styles, from a 7-foot galvanized steel structure to a 3-foot wire trellis with decorative designs. A trellis is good for climbing plants like roses or cucumbers, because their wandering vines can grow up around the trellis. This saves space by encouraging vertical growth instead of taking up more land horizontally.

An arched trellis is not only practical because it provides plants with vertical growing space, but it's also just a beautiful option that gives the garden a bit of a whimsical feel. Each end of the arched trellis can be tucked into opposite ends of a raised garden bed or planter so that the flowers, plants, or vegetables can grow up and over, giving them more space to grow beyond the horizontal boundaries of the planter. You can DIY an arched trellis from ladder mesh or a cattle panel, or purchase a pre-made arch from a garden center.

A tiered bucket garden is a functional option that gives more planting space without using more yard. Build your own by measuring and cutting enough wood to create a frame that fits four buckets in a row, and screw each piece together. Insert and secure a piece of wood in between each bucket. Cut and attach a piece of wood to each corner as the legs. Repeat the process three times to make three rows, increasing the height of the legs so each sits higher than the previous. Fill buckets with soil and plants.

If you want to get the most bang for your buck when gardening in a small yard, it's valuable to understand how square-foot gardening can help keep your plants flourishing. While your standard garden might be planted in rows, with space to walk in between, the square-foot gardening method builds out a grid within a square space, in which each seed is planted. By removing the walking path, you're saving unused ground and maximizing the area available for gardening. As a bonus, there's significantly less weeding involved using this method.

A typical square of lattice is made of long, thin pieces of wood woven together in alternating fashion to create what looks like a crisscross pattern. You can use them as a leaning trellis, connecting multiple pieces to build it as large as you need. Secured to a wall or fence to give it more sturdiness. Or you can use them to create a wall extending up from the back of a raised planter. Add a second panel on an adjacent side of the planter to create a raised corner for the plants to climb and grow vertically.

Raised beds and planter boxes are space-savers in their own right, but if you really want to maximize every last bit of your small yard, try incorporating smaller pots by hanging them off the walls of larger planters. Small pots are great for things like herbs or pansies. You can buy hanging flower pots that have a metal hook to hang from the wall of a larger planter. Or you can drill a hole in the rim of a small pot and use an S-hook to attach it to the wall of the planter.

There are many plants that will work in a vertical garden, and obelisk trellises are a fantastic option for adding more of that vertical growth. The most useful aspect of an obelisk trellis is that you can place it in the middle of the garden, in a planter, or straight down into the ground. You don't need a wall to lean it on or another structure to secure it to. Their legs dig into the ground to make it a sturdy place for heavier plants and vines to grow upward, leaving plenty of space below.

Stackable planters have multiple layers, each containing several pots connected at the center. The layers sit above each other at an angle, which prevents the pots from being directly over the others. That way, each pot can get sunlight and is accessible for watering or other tending. Some stackable planters, like this 7 Tier Stackable Tower, even come on wheels so it can be moved around. These work just as well on a porch or backyard deck, as well as out in the yard or garden. You can grow anything from herbs to strawberries in them.

When you're running out of lawn, don't be afraid to use pots to create more growing space. You can use large planter pots to grow multiple things together, or use smaller pots to plant them individually. There are many different ways to creatively use pots around the yard. They can be used to line the outer edge of a porch or patio. They can also be creatively grouped together in the corner of the yard or used to decorate a sitting area. You can even hang them or place them on a pedestal.

Planter boxes can be used anywhere, from hanging over a fence to placing them decoratively under a window. But to make a full vertical garden with them, attach several to a wall, placing one above the other as high as you have space for. This can work on the side of a garage, fence, or house. Planter boxes come in various sizes, so you can customize it to your needs. Not only does it create a beautiful garden feature, but it's a great use of vertical space when you have a small yard.