The right-sized sanctuary: Finding joy in the smaller garden

SINGAPORE – There comes a moment in every gardener’s life when the relationship with the land subtly shifts.

What was once a canvas of endless possibility – the sweeping borders, expansive lawn and weekends spent happily weeding, pruning and planting – can begin to feel less like a sanctuary and more like a taskmaster.

For empty nesters approaching retirement, the realisation often comes with both physical and financial considerations. Large gardens demand time, energy and money. Mature trees need pruning; fences and pipes deteriorate; drains and irrigation systems need maintenance.

For me and my husband, Ron, the decision to leave our nearly 7,800 sq ft property after 36 years was not due to my passion for gardening diminishing. It was because the demands of maintaining the house and garden – which became known as Min’s Garden – were beginning to consume the very energy I wanted to spend enjoying them.

Our nearly 60-year-old colonial home had served us well. We had moved in with little left after putting down a deposit for the house. A major renovation was beyond our means and, over the decades, we grew to love its character and imperfections.

But eventually, the imperfections became problems. Cracks appeared, mould crept into dark corners, the original plumbing began to fail and the ageing roof could no longer reliably keep out the rain.

One particularly stormy evening, the kitchen leaked so badly that we exhausted every pail in the house trying to contain the deluge. A dinner with friends had to be cancelled as we spent the evening chasing leaks with buckets and towels.

Then a major pipe burst in the ground-floor toilet, while soil erosion in the split-level garden and ageing trees added to our worries. During storms, I watched Ron pace the house anxiously, listening for the next branch or tree that might come down.

When we eventually calculated the cost of putting everything right, the estimate surpassed six figures.

That was when I realised I was holding on to a museum of my past at the expense of my future.

Downsizing was no longer a defeat. It became an act of preservation – not of the property, but of the gardener.

The difficult art of letting go

The hardest part of moving was not packing the house. It was deciding what happened to the garden.

You can pack away photographs, books and furniture. But what do you do with a tree? How do you pack away the shade it gave you, the mornings spent beneath it, the conversations held beside it, the countless times you watched a new leaf unfurl?

You can’t. So I had to choose.

The plants that made the cut into a smaller space are those that earned their keep through resilience, scent, texture or deep personal significance.

The trees, most of them nearly three decades old, were too large and too established to move. My big tiger orchid (Grammatophyllum speciosum) was moved to the Shangri-La Singapore hotel’s atrium garden, and three handsome Johannesteijsmannia went to a friend’s garden.

Many other treasured plants and garden ornaments eventually found homes or were let go.

It was painful, but it also forced me to recognise something I had not appreciated before: After 36 years of gardening, I knew what worked.

Small space, big possibilities

When I first saw the new place, a condo with a built-in area of 2,500 sq ft, the gardening spaces were hardly promising – essentially a backyard and a narrow, muddy stretch along the side of the cluster house. But I could see possibilities.

I walked the spaces repeatedly, working out where screening plants could go, where the botanical keepers from Min’s Garden could have room to shine and how the different areas could flow together.

I had less than six weeks to make it happen while the internal renovation was under way.

Then came six lorry loads of plants. Three pallets of Parastone pavers came with them, craned over to the property. I had noticed on earlier visits that heavy rain left parts of the muddy pathways waterlogged, so the pavers eventually became a practical as well as aesthetic solution.

The nursery workers laid the first stretch. I later brought over the remaining slabs from the old garden and completed the paths with my domestic helper.

Today, those narrow walkways are solid and steady, with lush foliage spilling over both sides. What were once muddy passages have become some of the most inviting parts of the garden.

Curating a compact tropical palette

The smaller footprint meant I could no longer simply plant outwards. I had to think upwards.

Layering was something I had learnt instinctively from the cheek-by-jowl planting of Min’s Garden. By placing plants at different heights, I could create the feeling of a much larger, deeper garden without actually needing more ground.

Tall plants form the backdrop: cyclanthus, Calathea lutea, mature heliconias and cordyline, together with the existing Baphia nitida, or camwood, which provides useful screening.

The middle layer is largely foliage – big-leafed aroids such as Anthurium hookeri, monstera, philodendrons and alocasia, alongside variegated aglaonema and dieffenbachia. Spathiphyllum and Aspidistra elatior, soften the edges.

Along the side pathway, a Schefflera arboricola provides greenery and height, while a moringa has grown with such enthusiasm that within a year, I had to cut it back by half – twice. I joke that it was trying to become the tree in Jack And The Beanstalk.

Begonias trail from an arch against the wall, while orchids hang along the fence, several already rewarding me with repeat flowering. Recently, I added luffa gourd seedlings, training their eager tendrils up the fence.

Six months later, another two lorry loads of plants arrived from a greenhouse plot I had rented temporarily. Slowly, the two stretches that had once been bare and muddy began to feel lush and inviting.

The result isn’t a recreation of Min’s Garden. It is Min’s Garden distilled.

Finding botanical intimacy

There is something unexpectedly liberating about a smaller garden.

In a large garden, abundance can become overwhelming. There is always something to prune, weed, mow or rescue.

In a smaller space, individual plants become characters. A new leaf becomes an event. You notice the texture of a leaf, an orchid sending up a new spike or a flower opening almost imperceptibly.

I have come to think of this as botanical intimacy.

The joy of gardening doesn’t necessarily shrink with the garden. Sometimes, it becomes more concentrated. And the opportunities don’t stop at the garden beds.

My courtyard now has a vertical green wall as its main feature, surrounded by foliage plants at its base. The louvred roof provides filtered light and natural airflow.

The sun-drenched rooftop terrace gives me another opportunity for container planting, with pockets of shrubs and flowering plants. More recently, I’ve started a small stretch of herbs beneath a sheltered roof.

Each space has its own character.

A garden that gives back

A year after downsizing, I have begun to understand that I didn’t lose my garden. I changed my relationship with it.

The new garden asks less of me. There is less heavy maintenance, fewer ageing structures to worry about and less ground to patrol after a storm. And no returfing of grass every six months.

More importantly, I have regained the pleasure of simply being in the garden rather than constantly working on it. I can sit down and look. I can watch. I can notice.

Perhaps that is the greatest luxury a smaller garden can offer: not more plants, but more attention to the plants you have.

Downsizing doesn’t mean giving up a garden. Sometimes, it means making room for a different kind of abundance – one with fewer demands and more moments to stop, breathe and simply watch it grow.

After decades of making a garden grow, perhaps that is the garden’s final gift: giving something back to the gardener.