Plants for a Narrow Garden

Plants can be found that fit perfectly in narrow spaces.garden image by Deborah Durbin from Fotolia.com

Turn a narrow-spaced garden into a beautifully landscaped masterpiece. A number of plants grow low to the ground or straight up, which allows them to be planted in small spaces. No matter how small your garden space is, there is a plant that will fit in it. Design in a narrow garden is a little more difficult, but it can definitely be done.

Japanese Holly

Japanese holly is a popular species of holly. The shrub has dense branching growth and fine-textured foliage. Japanese holly tends to resemble a boxwood plant more than other holly species. These slow growers can live up to 80 years and start out at approximately 3 feet tall by 2 feet wide. The shrub can grow up to 15 feet tall and 10 feet wide, however the plant can be trimmed down to any size you want. It has small creamy white flowers that have four petals, but the flowers are so tiny that they are insignificant. These hollies can withstand severe pruning and make great hedges. The leaves are glossy and dark-green. The shrub produces small berries that are black, however yellow and white berries are occasionally seen. Keep the soil moist, plant in partial or full sun and mulch thickly around the base of the shrub.

The winter creeper is a vine that sometimes invades forests in the eastern United States. It is also small shrub that grows in mats along the ground floor. The shrub can grow to 3 feet wide and tall, and the vine grows as tall as 70 feet. Both can be trimmed to any size you prefer. Leaves are dark green, glossy and sometimes have a white venation. Only the climbing plants will flower and produce yellow-green flowers with five petals that bloom in midsummer. The fruit it produces is reddish-pink and is full of orange seeds. Winter creeper can smother and kill nearby plants and shrubs if not trimmed properly.

Checkerberry, also known as wintergreen, is a shrub that grows no larger than 1 foot tall and 3 feet wide. The foliage is dark green and glossy and has a strong wintergreen smell when leaves are crushed. The shrub grows best in acidic soil that is moist and in partial shade. It can be grown in full sun as long as the soil stays constantly moist. White and pink flowers appear in the summer and mature to edible scarlet fruit in the spring.