Read the Space Before You Spend a Penny

Narrow courtyards are their own peculiar microclimate, and the single biggest mistake is treating one like a scaled-down garden. Spend a fortnight noting where the sun actually falls and for how long. A courtyard running roughly north to south might catch four or five hours of decent light at the far end while the strip nearest the house stays in gloom until mid-afternoon. That observation alone will decide what you can grow and where.

Check the drainage too. Many courtyards are paved hard up to the wall with one small gully, so pots standing in a puddle through winter will rot off. Wind is the other quiet problem: a narrow gap between buildings funnels a breeze into something far fiercer than the forecast suggests, which will shred anything tender. Note the exposure and the light before you buy a single plant, and you will save yourself a season of quiet disappointment.

Go Vertical — It Is the Whole Game

In a courtyard, floor space is the scarce resource and wall space is the abundant one, so nearly every planting decision should be asking how it can be lifted off the ground. Fix timber battens to the wall and screw trellis to those, which keeps the panel clear of the brickwork and lets air move behind.

Climbers in generous pots will do the heavy lifting. Star jasmine is wonderful in a sheltered, sunny corner, giving glossy evergreen leaves and creamy, intensely fragrant flowers from midsummer. On a shadier wall, a climbing hydrangea or a plain ivy will cover quickly and without complaint. Clematis are worth growing in two or three varieties so something is flowering from late spring into autumn.

Add wall-mounted troughs at staggered heights rather than in a straight line. The eye reads the offset as depth, and a courtyard badly needs that illusion.

Paint It Pale and Let the Light Bounce

Dark brick soaks up light like a sponge. Pale surfaces throw it back, and in a space this small the difference is noticeable within a day of painting. Off-white, soft sage, warm limestone and gentle grey-blues all work well, particularly on the back wall, which is the surface you look at most.

Treat any bare timber fencing, a tired shed door, even old terracotta pots to the same treatment, in a breathable exterior paint suited to the surface. A lime-rendered wall needs a breathable masonry paint; sealed brickwork is more forgiving. Keep the palette to two or three tones so it reads as calm rather than busy, and use the palest shade furthest from the house, where light is weakest.

Mirrors, Water and Other Borrowed Tricks

A well-placed mirror at the closed end of a narrow courtyard genuinely works, and it is the oldest trick in the small-garden book. Choose a weatherproof outdoor mirror and mount it on battens so air circulates behind and damp cannot take hold. Position it so it reflects something worth looking at — a favourite pot, a lit wall, a splash of foliage — and angle it carefully away from neighbouring windows.

Water does something similar. Even a small, shallow bowl with a trickle of movement catches light and sound and makes the space feel less enclosed. Pale paving, light gravel and one or two discreet uplighters on a timer will carry the same effect into the evening.

Plants That Earn Their Keep

Every plant in a courtyard should do at least two jobs. Think scent, structure, evergreen presence and a long flowering season.

• Structure: a compact Japanese maple, a clipped euonymus or a bay in a large pot gives year-round shape and anchors a corner.
• Scent at nose height: place lavender, rosemary or a small daphne on a shelf or ledge rather than at your feet, where you will never smell it.
• Long colour: hardy geraniums, heuchera and erigeron will flower for months with very little fuss.
• Shade fillers: ferns, hakonechloa and ivy-leaved cyclamen cope happily with a north-facing wall.
• Something to eat: herbs, cut-and-come-again salad and a couple of tomato plants make the space useful as well as pretty.

Group pots in odd numbers and vary the heights, using a couple of tall, slim containers to draw the eye upward.

Flooring, Furniture and Keeping It Tidy

Avoid dark, busy paving, which visually shrinks the space. Pale sandstone, porcelain or a simple gravel finish all work better, and gravel has the added advantage of softening the sound of footsteps. Choose furniture that folds, stacks or fixes to the wall — a slim bistro set and a bench with storage underneath will serve you better than anything bulky.

Maintenance in a courtyard is mostly about water. Pots dry out fast, especially against a warm wall, so group them together to shade one another and consider a simple drip system on a timer for the height of summer. Top-dress with gravel to slow evaporation, feed fortnightly through the growing season, and the whole space will stay looking cared for with perhaps twenty minutes a week.

Small does not mean limited. Treated as a room rather than a leftover strip of ground, even the narrowest courtyard will give you scent, greenery and a very good place to sit.