My 93m² Spoonie Home: My Tiny Spoonie Garden

A garden is an extension of the home—or at least if should be. Right now, my tiny Spoonie garden falls short. Dramatically. This is at least partly due to its miniscule size.

When I search ‘tiny garden’ on Pinterest, it shows me gardens that feel positively colossal compared to my postage-stamp-sized strip of land. Good luck doing something useful, pretty, and wheelchair-accessible with such a small outdoor space… 

My 18.9m² Spoonie Garden

How My Tiny Spoonie Garden Grows

In my garden are no silver bells, no cockle shells, or pretty maids—and most definitely not in a row.

What I do have is the equivalent of a quickly thrown together home: odd bits and bobs scattered throughout. A few raised beds, a hedge, and a 1.50m x 7.00m strip of pavers running the entire width of my ground floor flat.

It’s not pretty, and certainly does not invite me to spend any amount of time there. That needs to change. 

What’s Good In My Little Courtyard Garden

This is not to say there’s nothing pretty about my small urban garden. 

I firmly believe that gardens don’t have to be large to become part of daily life. They just need good design: a design that’s not just pretty to look at, but also takes its users’ particular needs into account.

• The moment I enter my little courtyard garden, I am greeted by a large, fragrant rosemary bush. Though tiny when I planted it, it seems to enjoy its place in my garden. 
• A gooseberry provides tasty red berries for me to enjoy—if visiting birds don’t get to them first. 
• There’s thyme, and both pink and purple lavender—and the pollinators attracted by their lovely scents.
• A nice, dense Lonicera hedge prevents  neighbourhood dogs from accidentally wandering into my tiny Spoonie garden.   
• Last but not least, there’s my gorgeous Virginia Creeper, on which I based the colour scheme for my home library—a room still very much in the making.

Yet, as in interior design, where having a collection of beautiful items won’t automatically result in a stylish home, having pretty plants and shrubbery won’t create an appealing garden.

What’s Bad About My Tiny Spoonie Garden

While the random layout of my garden bothers me, there so much more going on than just that. Things that aren’t easily solved.

I live in the city. I love my city. It has some of the most gorgeous parks and gardens in the country. The river Rhine flows right through the heart of the city. There’s some absolutely stunning centuries-old architecture. 

Unfortunately, there’s also quite a few drawbacks to living in the city. To me, the worst of them is the heat. In summer, my neighbourhood turns into one big heat island, which makes it challenging to control the indoor climate in my wheelchair-accessible flat. 

Ideally, my Spoonie garden should combat urban heat effectively. At present, it doesn’t. Also, because roughly half of it is paved, it does a lousy job at rainwater management. And while over the past years we’ve experienced more heavy rainfalls, most of that rain drains right off into the sewers. Between those heavy rainfalls, we get more and longer droughts.

I have zero privacy in my garden. The terraced houses across the street are less than 20 metres away. If my neighbours leave their curtains open, I can see straight into their kitchens—which also means they can watch my every move. Not only in the garden, but also in my living room and music room.

Then there’s the maintenance aspect. You know how everyone goes on about raised garden beds being accessible? That’s only partly true. Because what’s the point in having a raised bed when you can’t get close enough to keep up with it properly?

Sure, there’s a solution to that problem, too: roll-under planters. Most of them are quite ugly and… they require a hard surface underneath. More paving, which is exactly what I don’t want.

But the biggest problem with my garden is its size. It’s not at all easy to design a good-looking, wheelchair-accessible, climate-change-proof-garden I can maintain without wearing myself out completely. Not in the tiny space I have available.

The Ugly Aspects Of My Small Urban Garden

Remember the beautiful Virginia Creeper I mentioned earlier? The one I based my colour scheme for my library on? Its vigorous growth makes it completely unsuitable for a garden that fits into your back pocket.

Weeds. I’ll be honest. I never liked gardening. I especially never liked weeding. And yet, no matter what I do, the weeds keep coming back. Well, I could probably kill them with chemicals, but that’s not an eco-conscious choice. 

My pollen allergies ensure gardening makes me break out in hives, and never mind that I routinely take anti-histamines from January, when pollen season starts, through to late October when it finally ends.

And finally, there’s the creepy crawlies. Need I say more?

Future Plans For My Tiny Spoonie Garden

I’m no gardener, but I absolutely appreciate beauty. I enjoy interior design. I also love designing gardens. 

In the early years of this century, my children lured me into playing The Sims™. While I wasn’t wild about the original Sims games, that changed with The Sims 2, which had so much more to offer when it came to building homes and gardens.

In fact, I liked it so much, I created entire custom neighbourhoods. (Note to self: Do NOT Buy The Sims™ 2 Legacy Collection. Your house will go to pot, and you’ll go hungry. Fact.)

But I digress. 

accessibility and sustainability can go hand in hand

The idea is to redesign my back-pocket garden so it will be easier to maintain, provide shade and privacy, and absorb more rainwater—without sacrificing wheelchair-accessibility. And, last but certainly not least, I also want it to have a custom-built cat enclosure, so my three cats can enjoy the outdoors, too. 

These are not separate goals. They are intertwined. Because I believe that accessibility and sustainability can (and should) go hand in hand. One should support the other. 

I realise that this is an ambitious goal, and I highly doubt I’ll be able to figure it out all by myself. So, when the time has come to renovate the garden, I will certainly hire a landscape design firm near me. And I can tell from experience that—even though I will have my own design ready—a good landscape designer will be able to improve on it. To make it fit my criteria even better.

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