The Smallest Garden

What sort of garden do you design when you have a space of 5x5? That was our challenge in this tiny little pocket garden in downtown Toronto. The house is built in an alley way allotment and the entire back yard is 20X5. The largest challenge was bringing all of the materials, soil, pea stone plants and rocks through the house to the backyard with out dropping anything, or making an enormous mess.

In that limited but packed space there is a sleeping "pad" which is behind me, from where I am taking the photo. A small gas fire place which is next to me from where I am taking the photo. A dunking pool, which you can see in front of me in this photo. And just beyond, is a very tiny little garden. The house is so beautifully and logically designed. Because the house is so rectalinear,

we decided to make the garden more Zen like, sort of foresty and a bit wild, and I think that we were all very pleased with the results. The customer says he loves to sit in his tub (the one on the inside) and look out onto his garden. I really wanted to see his vantage point. So, the other day, when I was there planting in the front garden. I got into the tub and sat down, and you know what? it really was very so  lovely and soothing.