Simple French Quarter-style Courtyard Gardens and Other Tiny Garden Ideas If you have a brick or stone patio, terrace or courtyard, you can easily turn that area into a little French Quarter garden.. An unused side yard with enough room for seating or just a bench, can also be an amazing space, when surrounded by plants in pots or climbing on trellises and walls. New Orleans is well-known for it's very small yards, if any, and narrow courtyard gardens. Simplest of design ideas follow. Expand if your space is larger: The famous courtyard gardens of the French Quarter date
back only to the mid-20th century. The Garden District is a neighborhood in the
city of New Orleans. The appeal of today's courtyard gardens is it's simplicity and sense of enclosure. Like a teeny secret garden retreat. The style creates a romantic feel within a small tropical space. Fragrant flowers, flowering vines, iron plant stands, iron-look or any ornate urns filled with ornamental foliage plants, raised planters, iron trellises and wrought iron seating. Fill some of the urns or raised beds and window boxes with Creole and Cajun culinary herbs for a pretty and fragrant kitchen herb garden, without creating a designated area or herb bed. Northern gardeners can achieve it by using hardy versions of the herbs or substitutions. Create a vertical garden in the small, sheltered narrow spaces
with tall and ornate trellises, small arches, and use vines trained to a stone
or brick wall. Teeny courtyard spaces will look a little cluttered with a lot of plants. That's where the different levels of planting concept comes in handy. Ground level, mid-level, tall and climbing, as well as hanging pots and raised garden beds on legs. In a courtyard garden, rely on greenery and flowers to soften the hardscape, and the vertical surfaces of walls provide an ideal spot to train vines. Vines can sink their roots in planting beds or containers. If you’re using containers to host perennial vines, make sure they’re large enough to give roots adequate room. Many courtyard gardens are shady, so select vines that withstand lower light conditions. Planting space is at a premium in courtyards, so tending a garden in containers is a beautiful way to save space and still have lots of plants. Annuals, perennials, some vines and most shrubs can all perform well in pots. If you don't have a courtyard, use a stone/brick patio or terrace as the basis for the courtyard feel. Make use of non-stop flowering annuals and perennials to create a courtyard cottage garden. Bamboo, Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra) and Japanese iris (Iris ensata) in pots will achieve a Japanese garden theme. Ferns, hosta, bleeding hearts and other shade-lovers give a shaded courtyard the feeling of a forest grotto. Some typical features of courtyard gardens You can create the courtyard look and feel by using your patio or terrace or the side spaces around your house that aren't used for that illusion of enclosure or privacy. Stone and brick walks or walls, stone ornaments or statues, and stone or stone-look planters will give that effect. Adding a stone faux or real wall fountain on house walls is a nice atmospheric touch. Traditionally, courtyard gardens feature flagstone, rustic stone or brick walls and floor - Inexpensive and ornate evergreen creeping fig can creep up brick walls, and it's very pretty. It has delicate, teeny leaves, unlike the big ivy seen on walls. It also comes in variegations. I have some that is dark green with white edges. You should control it in pots and with pruning, though. Especially if yours is a small space between houses. You don't want your plants to ramble and interfere with your neighbor's garden. Set planters on the patio/terrace filled with anything you like. Flowers, fruit, foliage plants all come in dwarf sizes especially suited to being in pots. Lemon and lime trees look beautiful, and you do get full-sized fruit. The leaves are a gorgeous deep, glossy green. If you live in a warm area, they are hardy. In the north, bring the potted plants indoors. They make happy and stunning house plants. Mine flower like crazy, smell wonderful, and they will also bear fruit indoors. Put them back outside when it's warm in spring. Fig trees can be grown in pots, as I do in the north. If you're in a warm zone, they will be very happy outdoors in-ground, in pots and espaliered against walls and arches. Don't espalier the trees if you can't leave them outdoors all winter. That would be a lot of care for a plant in the northern region, when you would have to bring inside for it to survive. And it would damage or kill the plant to remove it from the espalier frame or training wires. Espalier is beautiful on brick or stone walls, or free-standing on a frame, as well. Examples of ornamental espalier. And visit this page for How to do it for most types of fruiting trees and ornamentals Historically, courtyards in New Orleans were lit by gas lamps on posts. You can still do this, or find the many beautiful solar pathlights, sconces, lamp posts and lanterns that suit your style and how you will use the space. Place a few solar fairy light strings among the plants to add a little magic. Found objects - Flea markets, yard sales, antiques auctions, grandma's attic - all are filled with decorative and sentimental objects that can be used to define your garden spaces. Potted dwarf trees and ornamental shrubs, palms and other heat-loving plants - Elevate some plants in pots for more planting opportunities, and to create a look of more vertical space. Choose plants resistant to fungus if your region is plagued by high humidity. Round garden beds look better in tight spaces than square ones in small square gardens, and add a lot of interest in a brick or stone courtyard. Tall trellises and single, ornate metal fence panels allow for climbing plants, create a screen or a backdrop for floor-level plants and shrubs. They also look great around a wrought iron bench or bistro set seating area. Potted ferns, (several varieties will grow in northern gardens and other can grow indoors in winter), aspidistra, and dwarf Japanese maples look beautiful together. Dwarf Japanese Maples come in many varieties and colors. Many have delicate, wispy leaves and weeping habits. Plants like plumbago, camellias (there's a hardy variety for northern gardens), blooming agapanthus, bird of paradise, and ligularia add spots of color. I would add the stunning Angel Trumpets and jasmine on a brick wall, divider or heavy ironwork trellis. In a shady spot, you can encourage ferns to grow in cracks in a wall or steps. I might also plant a small variety of crape myrtle tree in a pot as a focal point, and azaleas in pots, but i'm not really a big fan. They're definitely a nice addition to a southern garden design. I would prefer a stone fountain as my focal point. Below are suggested plants for a French Quarter Style Ornamental Garden - choose plants and varieties based on what will grow in your area, and based upon the USDA Cold Hardiness Zone Map. Many ornamental plants in pots can be brought indoors in winter, and placed in the garden again in the spring after the last frost date for your area. You can easily find suitable replacements that have the look and feel of the ones you can't grow, or treat them as annuals you will plant every spring. Eliminate the grass and add decorative gravel or stones. Bedding plants Perennials - pansies, dianthus, snapdragons, stock and calendulas. Bedding plants for part-shade to shade: sun to part sun: Louisiana Irises - I grow these in my Japanese and Bog gardens. They do well in the ground, in pots, and in bog gardens. Louisiana iris is the name used for a unique group of native Louisiana iris species and their hybrids. Aquatic culture is one of the easiest and most natural ways to grow Louisiana irises, and the foliage tends to stay more attractive in the summer. Simply place a potted iris into your water feature, bog or aquatic garden so that the rim of the pot is a few inches below the water’s surface. Louisiana irises also grow well and look great planted in the ground, as well as on the edges of ponds. Ornamentals - Magnolia, Gardenia Climbing Plants - Roses, Jasmine, Angel Trumpets, Wisteria, bougainvilla, Honeysuckle,Trumpet Vines. Star Jasmine rambles around fences, posts, tellises and over walls, and Asiatic jasmineis a fast-growing ground cover. Both will fill the night air with intense fragrance. Potted Palms, succulents and Cactus - Prickly Pear Cactus (opuntia) is hardy in the north. Mine return every spring. Agave, Yucca and Aloe are beautifully architectural. I grow them in pots. I grow my Jade trees outdoors during the summer, and return them to their spots indoors for winter. They love the heat, and grow quite a bit in summer. As always, research your indoor plant's culture before vacationing it in the summer garden. Shady Gingers- In their natural habitats, most gingers grow under the canopies of trees in filtered light, although some grow in the open at the edge of water and in sunny conditions. Generally, gingers will do best where they receive direct sun for about two hours a day and should not be planted in hot, sunny, dry locations. Shell ginger and some types of Curcuma and Costus grow in full sun. Many different gingers can fill a variety of gardening needs. Low-growing gingers, like peacock ginger and smaller species of Curcuma or Globba, make great groundcovers or at the front of shady borders. Medium-sized gingers 3 to 6 feet tall include species and cultivars of Curcuma, Hedychium and Costus, while the shell ginger grows 10 to 12 feet tall. These larger gingers are perfectt for accents, focal points, screens or the back of a border. Tropical (or Hardy types for northern gardeners) Giant Hibiscus - A tall, tough and gorgeous plant with flowers as big as big dinnerplates. Long blooming time. Decor To add to the tropical look and feel, add small water features among the plants and pots, even if they're just bird baths or large basins with solar fountains floating in them. The birds love it, and the bubbling sounds at night are soothing and cooling. Add a larger fountain as a focal point in the landscape, or set one near your seating area. These are available in whites, pinks, lavenders and reds for hardy northern varieties, and many more colors in the tropical variety. Stone, concrete or stone-look ornamental pieces, stone and clay planters, angels, a stone wall fountain (working or not).Wrought iron fencing (a whole fence or just panels or gates) here and there covered in flowers and vines, black metal trellises, iron arches, iron bistro sets or patio furniture. You can hang a mardi gras-style mask in a secret corner or on an available window or door, and add old brass musical instruments found at a flea markets or yard sales for a jazz feel. If using a mask, make it small and classy without adding a mardi gras feel to your space. Add a small water feature where you can.
Additional sources: wikipedia
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