Five favourites - plants for small gardens

When it comes to choosing plants for small gardens it's important to select species which deliver interest over several seasons, don’t take up masses of space and happily grow alongside other plants. Get this right and your compact plot will be rich with colour and interest year-round.

Tips for growing plants in a small garden

Nandina domestica

As a small garden shrub Nandina domestica is hard to beat. I’ve designed it into virtually every garden I’ve ever created. It’s evergreen, yet takes on autumn colour, has a small footprint and displays both flowers and berries in different seasons. Unfortunately, it is commonly known as sacred bamboo, which I think puts people off it, but it has nothing to do with bamboos and is a very tight columnar plant ideal for small gardens, either in the ground or planted in a pot.

Geranium ‘Rozanne’

Geranium 'Rozanne' has more flower power than any others I know. Extraordinarily it blooms from May to November non-stop and creates weed suppressing ground cover in the process. I love to use it at the border front for a guaranteed display but it also works trailing over the edge of a raised bed. It's worth growing in a small garden not only for its longevity, but also because it's loved by bees and pollinators so increases biodiversity wherever it is grown.

Tulbaghia violacea

I first encountered this wonder-plant, Tulbaghia violacea, in its native South Africa where I gardened years ago. I was struck by its clear pink allium-looking flowers and its capacity to flower for seven whole months. I love its tussock-like grassy dome of foliage studded with a succession of wafty stems, topped with flower. I think its an essential in any small sunny garden in the ground or in a pot for its sheer flower power and resistance to pest and disease. It is also virtually zero maintenance.

Erigeron annuus

A little like Verbena bonariensis this annual daisy is a see-through plant. I love this quality, its columnar nature and the way it can be woven through perennial plants like it is at Great Dixter Gardens. Erigeron annuus can be grown from scratch each year but it will also gently self-seed in the garden so you can edit it as required. Another of its redeeming qualities for a small garden is that it blooms from June to November – pretty and impressive.

Anisodontea ‘El Rayo’

I look after several gardens in central London and discovered this extraordinary plant in one of them a few years ago. Astoundingly it never stops flowering. Literally blooming year-round. It needs a little shelter, so the protection of a small garden makes for a perfect home. Left to its own devices it will produce a 2-3m slim shrub but can have its lower branches removed to allow space for other plants at its base. Tall, slim and flowers forever – what more could a small garden need?