Sandy Felton reviews a great design book for those small spaces in our life.

There are times when I have sat in my little piece of utopia and wondered what if? What if I could afford to consult a professional garden designer to do a complete make-over? What if I decided to completely change my cottage garden style for something more modern or chic? Like many contemporaries who have small suburban gardens I never get past the what if? stage.

The majority of gardeners in the UK are gardening in small suburban plots or have back-yards, where space is at a premium and uplifting ideas for a total transformation into a peaceful haven can be challenging.

Which is why I applaud Ann-Marie Powell for producing such a gem of a book in ‘Plans for Small Gardens’.

Here it is in one neat little volume – a book that tells me that less is sometimes more and that a garden can be “limited to only a few elements but still be strikingly effective”. She has my attention already in the introduction and I eagerly scan the contents to see what my “what if?” options might be.