Eight Feet Wide — Big Living in My Small Garden
Eight feet wide. Fifty feet long. It connects the back garden to the front — a passageway, not a destination. And yet it's one of the most layered, considered spaces in Darcy's NE Portland garden.
In this episode of Big Living in My Small Garden, Darcy walks the full length of her south side corridor, explaining how an undulating bed shape makes the difference between a corridor and a garden. Where the bed widens, there's room for tree-sized plants that create canopy and enclosure overhead. Where it narrows, there's movement and flow. That sequence of compression and release changes how the space feels, even when you can't see the bed lines from where you're standing.
The narrow sections force the planting up — vines, espalier, and plants willing to live flat against a fence. The fence itself was custom made to Darcy's design, with a steel and glass art element at the top and plain steel mesh panels below. The curved steel edging that defines the bed's sweeping lines required a process called rolling — an off-site fabrication technique that presses the curve into the steel so it holds its shape without stress. Darcy explains what makes this a professional installation, and what a DIY version actually looks like, with a nod to Donna from Over the Fence, who documented her own lighter-gauge project.
Not everything in this garden is resolved. Metapanax delavayi is a plant in transition — significant pruning this spring confirmed it can handle hard cuts, but what role it ultimately plays is still being worked out. Calycanthus 'Aphrodite' is the biggest plant in the corridor and the one putting the most pressure on its neighbors, including a Gordlinia grandiflora that deserves better conditions than it's currently getting. The ornamental grape over the front gate arbor is on the short list for removal. The gates themselves need rebuilding, and whether to replicate or reimagine them is a genuine design dilemma.
These are the overarching ideas that Darcy refers to regularly on her website:
Other videos in the Big Living in My Small Garden series: Turning Shrubs Into Trees, Auditioning Plants in Containers, and Tall and Narrow.
Explore plant combinations at eGardenGo.