How Do I Arrange Small Garden Beds?

Adding plant height leads to visual appeal.

Adding plant height leads to visual appeal.

When using several small garden beds, space them closely together, and fill them to the brim with vegetable, fruit and eye-catching ornamental plants. Placing each bed within a few feet of the other beds creates a unified effect from a distance and a pleasing space up close. Planting the beds tightly with plants but not crowding them gives the gardens a lush, full appearance.

Crowd within Reason

Small garden beds should not be spaced widely because growing anything between the beds and still using that space for walking is difficult. Keep the space between the beds bare or perhaps overlaid with bark mulch for easy walking. Because the space between beds will be visually barren, minimize it by keeping it only 1 to 2 feet wide. Within the beds, the same method can be employed: Crowding is prettier, as long as the plants have enough room to grow.

Grow Up

For the sake of utility as well as beauty, grow plants upward whenever possible. Whether you grow ornamental vines or annual climbing vegetable plants, such as garden peas (Pisum sativum), using stakes, cages, trellises and teepees to train plants upward adds interest to gardens of any size. Consider using more uncommon methods, such as tying or nailing crossed lattices of trimmed branches together then staking the lattice in the ground, or leaning two lattices against each another.

Design by Height

One of the best ways to arrange plants within small garden beds is by height. Keeping the tallest plants in a bed's center and the shortest along the bed's edge makes reaching into the bed's middle simple and allows each plant its space to be seen. Consider interspersing tall tufts of leafy annuals, such as ornamental cabbage (Brassica oleracea), with annual flowering plants, including nasturtium (Tropaeolum spp.), which adds a fire-colored bonus to an edible and ornamental garden.

Share Space

Because small beds do not have a lot of space, make the most of it. Growing plants with deep roots underneath plants with shallow roots eliminates the need to set aside ground for each of those kinds of plants and effectively doubles the growing area. Upward-growing garden peas, for instance, complement downward-heading fall annuals such as beets (Beta vulgaris). As a bonus, the plants shade each another, reducing the amount of weeding that is necessary.

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