Small-space gardens: 5 new books to inspire you

Small-space gardening books

A little expert advice can go a long way toward helping you get a big impact from a small garden. These five new gardening books can guide, inspire and delight as you set out to maximize your own little slice of paradise.

How to Grow Flowers in Small Spaces: An Illustrated Guide to Planning, Planting and Caring for Your Small Space Flower Garden, by Stephanie Walker ($17.99/Simon & Schuster)

Both first-time and experienced gardeners will benefit from this guide’s practical tips and techniques for growing 40 types of flowers in limited spaces. Covered topics include vertical gardening, plant selection, container gardens, making the most of soil and light conditions and even tips for creating bouquets from the fruits of your labor.

Tiny + Wild: Build a Small-Scale Meadow Anywhere, by Graham Laird Gardner ($24.99/ Cool Springs Press)

If you’ve dreamed of growing a low-maintenance, no-mow, wild meadow teeming with biodiversity but are short on space, this inspiring book will provide all the encouragement you need. Readers will learn that it requires only a few square feet of soil to contribute to ecological sustainability, support pollinators and even help mitigate climate change by maximizing underutilized areas, like the “hellstrip” (the sliver of land between the sidewalk and the street), a property line or around a mailbox. The author also provides plant lists, tips for sowing and caring for wildflowers and managing weeds, plus plenty of photos to inspire your own piece of natural wilderness.

A Year Full of Pots: Container Flowers for All Seasons, by Sarah Raven ($35/Bloomsbury Publishing)

Inventive tips for combining flowers, creating form and structure and caring for plants in containers — accompanied by stunning photos from the author’s home garden in Britain — make this guide a must for people who want to surround themselves with beautiful plants year-round. Whether growing in a large garden or on a balcony, readers will learn how the author prepares and plants her own pots, month by month, using annuals, perennials and layered bulb “lasagnas” — with only one hard rule: “More is more.”

Bonsai Master Class: Lessons and Tips From a Japanese Master for All the Most Popular Types of Bonsai, by Kunio Kobayashi ($24.99/Tuttle Publishing)

If you want to grow small, you can’t get much smaller than bonsai, the centuries-old art of training trees and shrubs to mature at dwarf size. And there probably isn’t anyone better to teach you how than Kunio Kobayashi, a decades-long bonsai artist and multiple-award-winning exhibitor who owns the Shunkaen Bonsai Museum in Tokyo. He provides advice for plant and tool selection, planting and shaping techniques, task schedules and instructions for cultivating different varieties, including red pine, maple, and Japanese cypress.

The New Plant Collector: The Next Adventure in Your House Plant Journey, by Darryl Cheng ($24.99/Abrams)

Whether you’re seeking new or rare specimens to add to your collection or just getting started, this book from the guru behind the wildly popular @Houseplant Journal Instagram page will help you select the best plants for your space — and ensure you know how to care for them properly. The author’s expert advice, accompanied by hundreds of photos, guides readers in growing, caring for and propagating dozens of plant varieties to create a curated collection of houseplants.

— Jessica Damiano