An accessible guide to designing a small garden including balconies, front gardens, plant walls and container gardens.
However small your gardening space, you should find ideas in this book on how to fill it. Filled with lots of modern, colour photos, this book is full of inspiration and practical advice.
As well as design guidance covering things like surfaces, storage and privacy, there is a small section of practical gardening advice at the end of the book covering things like pruning, watering and composting.
I recommend this book to beginner growers with small gardening spaces.

I’m in the process of designing a small garden and I’m a bit of a novice.
So I found this really well pitched for me.
It’s really practical- a bit like an experienced gardener chatting to you - and I liked the fact that he was all about the aesthetics as well as the planting.
He goes through different types of garden or look - such as city or more exotic gardens, which I found helpful.
All in all, I’d recommend it if you’re not the most experienced and want to make the most of your small garden.
It’s practical, chatty and has a contemporary feel so it will give you plenty of modern ideas.

A good general book taking you through ideas for shade to balconies and window boxes to front and back gardens. Taking a look at lighting and even grren roof ideas. Some idea of growth rate would be useful for the trees and shurbs. And importantly the flowering months for perennials!

As someone who is planning to revamp her garden this year, I feel privileged to have been given review copies of this series of books by Joe Swift. These are all well explained, informative and well illustrated and give many ideas and pieces of useful advice. After reading the book online, it is another hard copy purchase from Amazon.

Create Your Own Small Garden is one of a set of accessible gardening guides by Joe Swift covering a range of gardening topics. Due out 3rd March 2022 from Collins Reference, it's 224 pages and will be available in ebook format.

This is a well written garden tutorial and inspiration book aimed specifically at designing and gardening effectively within the constraints of working with limited space. The author does a really good job of highlighting specific potential problem areas and providing creative solutions. The information is written in clear and concise blocks with special tips written directly on the photo illustrations.

The chapters are arranged thematically around specific design elements: surfaces, boundaries, creating privacy, storage, raised beds, container gardening, roofs and balconies, and a lot more. The second part of the book contains a good listing of plants, shrubs, trees, bulbs, and perennials for every purpose. Many of them are chosen for their limited size or suitability/toughness vs. urban or less than ideal situations. Plant listings contain the botanical (Latin) nomenclature as well as common name, a description, and colour photos showing foliage and flowers (if applicable).

The book's terminology and climate information are based on UK English, although most of the information is certainly applicable to gardeners outside the British Islands.

Five stars. This would be a good choice for public and school libraries, gardening groups, community/allotment gardens, suburban gardeners, homeowners, etc.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

A great book if you have a small garden or intend to start working on one.
Informative, easy to follow.
Loved it, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine