Start With the Space You Actually Have

A small garden is not a lesser garden. It is simply a garden with less room for mistakes, which means every plant has to earn its place. Before you buy a single pot, spend ten minutes working out where the sun falls. Most small plots have a bright half and a shaded half, usually created by a fence, a neighbour's hedge or the house itself. Knowing which is which saves you from the classic heartbreak of watching sun-loving lavender sulk in the shade. Measure roughly, too — a patch of two metres by three metres holds far less than most of us imagine once a path, a bin store and a few pots are in place.

Be honest about how much time you want to spend out there. If the answer is "twenty minutes a week, tops", plan for that rather than for the gardener you might become in June.

Choose Plants That Forgive You

The biggest cause of endless garden chores is plants that need constant coaxing. Hardy, drought-tolerant choices settle in, spread politely and return year after year without fuss. Aim for a backbone of evergreens for structure, a few long-flowering perennials for colour, and bulbs for early interest.

• Lavender — clip lightly after flowering, but never cut into old, bare wood.
• Rosemary and thyme — happiest in poor, gritty soil and full sun.
• Salvia such as 'Caradonna' — weeks of tall purple spikes with very little watering once established.
• Hylotelephium, formerly known as sedum — succulent leaves and flat pink heads in late summer that bees adore.
• Hardy geraniums — cranesbill types knit together and smother weeds beneath them.
• Ornamental grasses — one hakonechloa or a clump of stipa gives movement and needs no deadheading at all.

Add spring bulbs in autumn — daffodils, alliums, snowdrops — planted in generous drifts rather than neat rows. They will perform beautifully while you are doing nothing whatsoever.

Repeat a Colour Rather Than Collecting One of Everything

This is the single design trick that makes a small garden look considered instead of crowded. Limit yourself to two or three colours and repeat them. A palette of soft purple, silver and white, for example, ties lavender, salvia, thyme and a white hardy geranium into something that reads as deliberate.

Repeat shapes as well. Three of the same plant grouped together always looks better than three different ones dotted about. Use the same pot style throughout — terracotta or a single dark glaze — and the eye stops noticing the boundaries of a compact space. Grow vertically where you can: a climbing rose, a jasmine or a compact clematis up a fence or obelisk adds height without eating any floor space.

Herbs That Earn Their Keep

Mediterranean herbs are the ultimate low-maintenance planting for a small, sunny garden. They are drought-tolerant, evergreen in many cases, and you can eat them.

• Rosemary — a tall, shrubby form works as a small hedge.
• Thyme — creeping varieties soften the edges of paving.
• Oregano and marjoram — cut back hard in spring to keep them bushy.
• Sage — purple or tricolour varieties give colour as well as flavour.
• Chives — pretty pink pompoms in early summer.
• Bay — clip once a year into a lollipop shape and it looks smart in a pot.

Keep mint in its own pot, always, or it will colonise everything. Water herbs sparingly and use a gritty compost mix; they resent soggy roots far more than dry ones.

Let the Soil and the Pots Do the Hard Work

Good preparation quietly removes hours of future labour. Spread a five-centimetre layer of mulch or gravel over borders in spring — it suppresses weeds, holds moisture and makes the surface look finished. Gravel is especially useful around herbs and alpines, keeping foliage dry and rots at bay.

In pots, go bigger than you think you need. A large container holds moisture far better than a small one and needs watering half as often. Line terracotta with a piece of old compost sack to slow evaporation, and cluster pots together so they shade each other's soil. If you can, plant directly in the ground where possible: plants in open soil need less attention than anything in a pot.

A Ten-Minute Weekly Routine

Little and often beats a weekend of catching up. Twice a week in summer, water deeply rather than little and often — a good soak encourages roots downwards. Pinch off faded flowers as you walk past with a cup of tea. Pull weeds while they are small enough to flick out with a finger.

Once a year, in early spring, cut back the previous season's growth, top-dress the soil with compost and replant anything that has outgrown its spot. That is genuinely the whole job. A small garden planted thoughtfully, with repetition and tough, willing plants, rewards you with far more than it demands.