It all started with a hydrangea for me. I loved the pillowy pink blooms that, as the months went on, went from showy fists of flowers to ghostly orbs in winter. I carried that poor plant, in its pot, from rented flat to houseshare, communal back garden to a small space on a doorstep. Eventually, when the only place I could afford to rent had no outdoor space, it lived out its last days in a friend’s garden. It’s long been compost.
For many in unstable living conditions this is the reality of gardening, if you are fortunate enough to have any outdoor space at all. One in five households in England and Wales now rent – double that of two decades ago. With no-fault evictions on the rise, and many being priced out of areas to rent in entirely, the idea of a garden being a space in which to grow long-term, watching saplings turn into trees, feels like a pipe dream.
But that hasn’t stopped people from gardening – far from it. As the writer Olivia Laing observes, more than 3 million people in Britain began to garden for the first time in 2020, nearly half of them under 45, seeing the benefits of growing, not just for the human mind and body, but for the health of the environment as a whole.
After a lifetime moving – about 23 times in total, including a stint in a homeless hostel as a child – I now live with my partner, who owns his flat, so I’ve been lucky to have free rein over our shady basement-flat patio since I moved in 18 months ago. I’ve grown things that have fed and awed me. Still, I’m aware our setup here isn’t for ever, and we would both love more space eventually, so I’m doing all I can to make sure as much of this garden as possible can be moved on if need be.
But how can you build a haven for wildlife and a sanctuary for yourself when you never know when you might be leaving it? Here, professional gardeners share their tips for how to create an incredible portable garden.
Think of yourself as a custodian of the space
“It’s worth remembering that even if you only garden in one place for your whole life, you’re still only a tiny fleck in the long history of that land,” says Frances Tophill, a gardener and presenter on the BBC’s Gardeners’ World. Tophill recently bought her first home in Devon, but before that had spent her life renting. “I’ve felt like the Junk Lady from Labyrinth, with all these plants that I’ve carted from place to place. But having hands in the earth can give you stability when you live a very transient life.”
Chat to your landlord – they might surprise you
One of the most spectacular rented gardens I’ve seen is by garden designer and BBC presenter Nick Bailey – who has moved house 27 times. In lockdown, he rented a place for 12 months in a village north of Northamptonshire while he looked for somewhere to buy. He asked his landlord if he could put some gravel down and some fencing up, “and they agreed they’d buy it back from me at the end of the tenancy – which I imagine is a rarity”. But it is essential to ask before you do anything that can’t be reversed in a garden you are renting.
Errol Fernandes, head of horticulture at London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens, asked his last landlord if he could pull up some of the paving slabs in his patio and grow directly into the soil underneath them. “Your landlord might be reluctant, but I just said, ‘Look, I will keep the paving slabs; you’ve got a deposit from me. If I don’t put it back as it was then you keep the deposit.’ What I ultimately did was create a beautiful garden through lots of passion. And six or seven years later, when I moved, I took all my precious things and left the rest for the new tenants.”
Size matters
Container gardening makes the most sense if you are looking to easily take plants with you, or – as is the case for many urban gardens – don’t have any soil to plant in. But it’s worth investing in, or scrounging, the biggest containers you can. “Container gardening is hard work, and the smaller the container, the quicker it will run out of water and nutrition, so the harder it will be,” says Fernandes. “If you can’t afford pots, then be creative. Look in skips for scaffold boards, and build your own containers. I used old galvanised steel water tanks – you see them sometimes outside houses that are being renovated. They’re quite brutalist but look fantastic in the garden when planted up.” Whatever you use, make sure it has holes in the bottom – or drill your own.
Build your own structures
In one of her rented properties, Tophill had a neighbour who didn’t want anything attached to their shared wall – which was where she wanted to grow, as it had the most sun. So she had to think creatively. “I built shelving out of scaffold planks. They were square boxes that piled up to make this higgledy-piggledy unit that was then filled with different plants in pots. And I could take the whole thing away when I left.” Be careful if you have a balcony, though. “You’re dancing on a line: you want it as big as you can get to make the roots and the plant as happy as possible, but small enough that it’s not going to compromise the structure of a building,” Tophill says.
She made another unit, put it on the other side of the garden and attached wires between the two of them, which she used to support her apple trees, also in pots. “It was all removable, which is so important in a rental market.”
Use height and layers
Bailey created a “theatre” of planting, using pallets, tables and other bits of scrap he found around his village, so the planting sat on different tiers, which gave him “instant height” and impact. I’ve tried to do the same in my own garden with bits of old furniture I’ve found on the street. When Fernandes lifted up his paving slabs, he used old floorboards to create a border, “which allowed me to lift the level up a bit”. Growing vertically, with climbing or hanging plants, is a great way to make the most of space, too.
Avoid bedding plants
Many gardeners try to avoid buying annual bedding plants. “I get it,” says Tophill. “You turn up to the garden centre and you see these lovely, bright, colourful things. And that’s what you’re going to want to buy. But – in terms of your money, because they are annual, you’re going to plant them that year and they will die. And for new gardeners, that can feel disheartening, because they think they’ve done something wrong.”
Another issue with bedding plants is the environmental cost of producing them. “The compost, the plastic pots they’re in, the light used to force them into early flowering, the cost of transporting them from other parts of the world: there’s a big footprint on these plants that are going to essentially live for a few months,” says Tophill. A more sustainable – and better-value – way of growing annuals is from seed. I like calendulas, cornflowers, borage and nasturtiums, which are all easy to grow, and edible, too.
Instead, go for perennials
“If you go for something that’s perennial, which means it comes back every year, it may have quite a big carbon footprint at the beginning when you buy it. But then in theory, it’s going to grow on and on and on,” says Tophill. And you can take it with you when you move.
Fast-growing plants can have a quick impact
If you’re not sure how long you’re going to be somewhere, think about things that grow quickly. “I’m always recommending Anisodontea capensis ‘El Rayo’ [African mallow],” says Bailey. “It will flower non-stop for about five years and then drop dead.” He also likes Salvia amistad for “incredible flowering longevity” (and the buds are almost as beautiful as the flowers). “If you want to grow economically, try cosmos. A single seed will make a 3ft plant in a matter of months.” I can also recommend valerian, which goes from tiny seed to a 1.5-metre giant in a single growing season, smells amazing and comes back each year.
Grow food
“It is so exciting to grow something that you can eat,” says Fernandes. While it’s worth bearing in mind that pretty much all fruits, vegetables and herbs need a decent amount of sun, there are still options for shadier spots. Fernandes has a north-west-facing garden and grows autumn-fruiting raspberries (he suggests Autumn Bliss) in the sunniest spot in a pot. “My kids are picking fruits from June up until Christmas,” he says. And they are very easy to take care of: “In early spring, chop the whole lot back and the cycle starts again.”
Repeat planting for unity
One of the things often not thought about in smaller gardens is repetition, says Bailey. “People think, ‘I want one of these and one of these.’ But if you pick two or three plants, which you repeat all the way through, you suddenly have continuity and unity and rhythm and everything holds together.”
Don’t solely use multipurpose compost
While multipurpose compost is fine for any annual plants like veg, it is usually just organic matter, meaning it gets broken down and eventually you’ll end up with nothing in the pot. “The perils of a multipurpose compost is that it’s only got six weeks of feed in it,” says Bailey. If anything is staying in a container for more than one growing season (ie more than a few months), he recommends a John Innes 3 mix, which contains extra nutrients.
Feed, water and mulch
If you’re growing anything in a container, “you’ve stripped away a plant’s natural capacity to look after itself – so you’ve got to become the ultimate plant parent”, says Bailey. That means feeding, as well as watering, regularly. Tophill suggests liquid seaweed, or homemade nettle or comfrey feeds. Wherever you are growing, mulching – which means spreading a layer of organic matter like composted bark – on top of your soil and around your plants “will do the work for you and pull nutrition down to the roots”, he adds.
Divide and repot
Every couple of years, you will need to take plants out of their pots and give them fresh compost or soil to grow in. The great thing about many plants is that once they outgrow their pots, you can divide them and get whole new plants for free.
Keep interest going throughout the year
Think about how things look as they die back: flowering grasses, poppy seed heads and the bronze star-like clusters of astrantias all look beautiful after their initial glory. Shrubs, particularly evergreen ones, shift and change throughout the year – often with berries and flowers that feed wildlife. Tophill likes Cotinus coggygria, or the “smoke tree” with its vivid burgundy foliage, while Fernandes suggests Osmanthus x burkwoodii and Daphne × transatlantica (eternal fragrance), which are “a lot of bang for your buck, as they look great all year round”.
Think about foliage and form
“I love interesting foliage, and I think it’s underrated because we often focus on flowers,” says Fernandes. “Persicaria filiformis is a favourite of mine: it’s got a beautiful chevron pattern on the leaves.” He especially likes a cultivar called Bat Wings, which I also have and love, too. He also likes Farfugium japonicum for its “glossy, kidney-shaped leaves” – especially the straight species, which is “really shade-tolerant”. Grasses such as Miscanthus sinensis shimmer and move with the wind and create a living, moving canvas for the garden. Most like sun, but grasses such as Deschampsia cespitosa and Chionochloa rubra (which is a favourite of Fernandes’s) will do well in part shade.
Work with shade
“Most small back gardens, particularly in an urban environment, are a woodland setting,” says Tophill. So you need to work with plants that will thrive in those conditions. I’ve had success with ferns, epimediums and hostas (or what is left of them after the snails have had a go), foxgloves, acanthus and Fatsia japonica, also known as paperplant. Tophill suggests tropical plants in urban areas “because the buildings around you are heating themselves”.
“Loquat trees can cope much better with the shade. You’ll also get lush foliage that will grow up and surround you.” For edible flowers, Tophill suggests violas and Betonica officinalis (wood betony) for its medicinal purposes. “It looks beautiful and its pink flowers are great for pollinators.”
Remember not everything will move with you
If and when you do move, it’s worth remembering that every space is different. “The new place will probably have a different climate, different aspects, different soil,” says Tophill. “This may prevent you from growing things that you’ve grown in the past, but it’s also an opportunity to do different things.” Most of all, I find you will always take what you’ve learned from one space with you – and that’s something that will never wilt in the back of a removal van.
• A Year in a Small Garden by Frances Tophill is out now, published by BBC Books.
