Landscape Design To Compliment A Smaller Home

Designing around a smaller home is a challenge for many homeowners. The absence of space makes it difficult to know what to prioritize and where to put plants and hardscapes. We especially see theses issues in the Minneapolis and St. Paul urban areas. In this blog post, we’ll discuss a few tips and tricks we like to use here at KG Landscape when we design landscapes for smaller homes in the Minneapolis area. 

Tips for Landscape Design Around A Smaller Home

An aerial view of a patio with a table and chairs in a backyard.

Scale

Scale is the most important aspect to consider when talking about a smaller home. In the front yard, plants and shrubs should only come up to bottom of the windows, not any higher. Try to use more narrow shrubs/trees instead of wide, spreading ones. We like using holmstrup arborvitaes or pinnacle birches instead of huge red maples or oaks. The same goes for small perennials too. We love tall grasses like karl foerster and flowers like lillies to provide more of that sense of scale in a small yard. 

A backyard with a brick walkway leading to a house and a fence.

Keep the Lawn

Don’t take up too much of the lawn. Leave at least 3/4 of your outside space as grass. Lawn space is key to making a house feel like a home. It’s also comparatively very inexpensive to install and relatively easy to maintain. A larger home might be able to fit 3 rows of plantings in the front yard but a smaller home could only do 1-2 rows. One of the biggest mistakes we see with smaller homes is not achieving balance in the mulch/rock beds and lawn space. Mulch beds need to be refreshed every year or two and rock is very expensive to install so minimize those costs by leaving at least a little bit of lawn space. 

A drawing of a garden with trees and a house

Use a Design

Design is super important. Utilize space and money as efficiently as possible. Depending on your goals, you might need more or less patio space which will allow for more or less plants. A designer can help you narrow down the goals you have and match those goals up with your budget. A big garden with lots of mulch and plants can feel very closed in. Knowing which plants to install will keep your plant beds looking beautiful and open all year. Installing proper screening can leave the yard feeling open but also block views. 

A brick house with a wooden fence and bushes in front of it

Find Places to Pop

In a smaller yard, you want to use plants that don’t take much a lot of space but still provide a lot of POP. We like to recommend using window boxes or annual displays by the front door. In a larger home/yard, we’ll install 3 rows of plants that can each have different color and flowering time and interest. On a smaller home/yard, you need to optimize the space so smaller annuals in  planter boxes and pots will give that same color and pop in a smaller space. 

Use a Trusted and Experienced Landscape Company like KG Landscape

KG Landscape has been in the landscape design business for almost 15 years. All of that built up experience has given us the opportunity to see a lot of different landscape situations. We then use that expertise to provide the most value to our customers. If you have a smaller landscape and need some help, simply give us a call or submit a quote request to our website and we’ll get back to you right away!

Ready to Start on Your Next Project?

Call us at (763) 568-7251 or visit our quote page.

Picture of a side yard KG Landscape regraded to solve a problem in Minneapolis

French Drains vs. Re-Grading: How to Determine the Best Fix for Narrow Side Yard Drainage Problem in the Twin Cities

By Kent • January 26, 2026
Struggling with side yard water problems in Minneapolis–St. Paul? See when French drains or re-grading works best for small yard drainage fixes.

Why French Drains Around Your Patio and Deck Footings Prevent Frost Damage in Plymouth Clay

By Kent Gliadon • January 22, 2026
Protect your Plymouth patio and deck from frost heave by installing French drains that keep clay soil dry around hardscape and footings.
Backyard fire pit area with plantings around it

Turning a 25-Foot Slope Into Usable Backyard Space: An Edina Project

By Kent Gliadon • January 15, 2026
One Edina family had a 25-foot slope and nowhere for their kids to play. See how we turned it into a lawn, sport court, and fire pit.
Front yard landscaping at corner of the garage with waist bin storage

Luxury Landscape Design Detail: Outdoor Waste Bin Storage in Plymouth

By Kent Gliadon • January 14, 2026
See how one Plymouth project turned an overlooked side yard into a design feature that matches the rest of the property.

Creating a Private Hot Tub Retreat on a Steep Side Yard in Plymouth

By Kent Gliadon • January 12, 2026
A Plymouth family turned a steep, unusable side yard into a private hot tub area with stone steps, drainage solutions, and boulder walls.

From Builder-Grade Landscaping to Designer Curb Appeal in Plymouth

By Kent Gliadon • January 11, 2026
See how a Plymouth family replaced basic builder landscaping with a custom flagstone walkway, strategic plantings, and a front yard that matches their home.

How We Create Proper Drainage in Narrow Minneapolis Side Yards While Keeping a Functional Walkway

By Kent Gliadon • January 9, 2026
Learn how French drains solve drainage problems in tight Minneapolis side yards without sacrificing walkway space or function.

How Underground Downspouts and Sump Pump Discharge Tie Into a Complete Plymouth Drainage System

By Kent Gliadon • January 7, 2026
Stop roof water and sump pump discharge from saturating your Plymouth yard. Learn how to tie everything into one drainage system.

Underground Downspouts & Sump Pump Drainage

By Kent Gliadon • January 3, 2026
Where All That Water Is Actually Coming From  Your backyard stays wet. You've noticed the soggy spots, the mud, maybe some frost heave damage to your patio or fence. You're thinking about French drains. But before you start digging trenches, look up. A huge amount of water hitting your yard isn't coming from rain falling on the lawn. It's coming from your roof. A moderate rainfall on a typical Plymouth home puts hundreds of gallons through your gutter system. Every bit of that water exits through your downspouts. Where it goes from there determines whether you have a drainage problem or not. Then there's your sump pump. Every time it kicks on, it's pushing water out of your basement and into your yard. On a wet property, that pump might run dozens of times a day. All that water has to go somewhere. If your downspouts dump water next to your foundation and your sump pump discharges into a side yard that drains toward your backyard, you're adding water to an already saturated situation. French drains alone might not be enough. You need to manage the sources. The Problem With Surface Discharge Most downspouts in Plymouth end with a splash block or a short extension that dumps water a few feet from the foundation. That's technically moving water away from the house, but not far enough.

Why Lake Homeowners Are Replacing Wooden Steps with Stone: A Minnetonka and Orono Guide

By Kent . • December 6, 2025
Why wooden lake steps always fail—and why Minnetonka and Orono homeowners are switching to stone. A contractor explains the replacement.