I’m working in a small garden in downtown Charleston for two days.

Lesson for the day: the smaller the garden, the more the work. For this place anyway. Four professional horticulturist, well be here two full days, just for the fall cut-back and bulb planting. Ok, its not a normal garden, its demanding display garden, built around the principles of William Robinson’s The Wild Garden.

All through the design process, that happened 7 years ago, and from taking care of it since, here are some lessons I’ve learned reitterating that small gardens do and should take more time and skill.

Every space counts in small gardens

Plants must be perfectly sited to take advantage of the space they occupy. But placing them can’t be boring, short in front, tall in back. So it takes lots of thought, lots of experience with how a plant actually grows to get placement right.

Lots more change outs

When a plant has proven that it doesn’t work in place, that it takes over, doesn’t show off enough, repeatedly fails, you have to be willing and ruthless in getting rid of it.

Cultural conflicts also dictate plant change outs. In a single 3 x 3 space, we might want Narcissus in winter/spring then caladiums in summer fall. Normally, the jonquills would be perennial and multiply, but they need summer dry. The caladiums need summer wet. Hence, we replant jonquils each year. (For a great book to help select Narcissus for warm climates, look for Daffodills for Florida.

Plants have to speak

Not only should each plant be a super example of its kind, as much as possible, I like each plant to be a pass along or at least have a story.

In flower now is Ipomea acuminata, perennial morning glory. It came with the garden, it’s a part of the people who gardened before us. A friend of my mother’s, a Cambodian woman who was sent in her youth to escape the Khmer Rouge, gave me this tiny Cambodian Soup Leaf. Yesterday, we removed pounds and pounds, masses of leaves — and i got to smile with memories of Su.

This afternoon, I head to Beech Island to spend some time with my family. Momma’s garden is opposite of this. A big, sprawling, country garden that fizzles away into pastures, pecan orchards and chicken pens. Every detail is pefect, revealing plants’ life cycles and phases.

Right now, four o’clock lean over, leaves shrinking, revealing shiny black seeds. Magnolia leaves and pecans crunch under foot – with ever step. Antique roses, each with a story of a friend, are cloaked in flowers. Here and there, lettuce beds, pansies and jonquil foliage emerges. You can see the amadillo cavern and the giant concrete frog – they were covered by crinum and turks cap for the last six months.

It’s such a big space, she and I will garden as we feel like it, working here and there, take coffee and pound cake break, picking up pecans, putting out a little CompostToast, not even thinking about garden history books, plans or all the plants that are not only out of space, but are making their own space.