Creating a grand illusion

KATHLEEN IRVINE moves carefully past tufts of New Zealand hair sedge that flank the skinny path, ducks under the silver-leafed willow wattle and unlatches the tall gate. Then it's a few paces to an elegant, raised redwood deck with extra-large steps that double as seating, overlooking a Lilliputian landscape of dwarf trees and grasses, thread-leaf nandina, mossy rocks and a "Stickman" sculpture cooling his heels in a burbling stream.

A curtain of gold and green 'Alphonse Karr' bamboo encloses the restful tableau, a serene mountain landscape that seems hollowed out of forest. Of course, it isn't. Not here in Venice, not in a backyard with less than 1,200 square feet of usable space. The magnitude of the garden is only an illusion, a collection of visual and spatial tricks employed to make a small lot seem larger.

"It's all people versus space with these tiny little yards," she says.

Irvine, owner of Blue Gecko Landscape Design, created the landscape for independent film producer Dan Abrams, who wanted a casual backyard retreat with room for company. The design needed to include a Larry Bell sculpture he admired, but his principle goal was to "make the space bigger."

How do designers accomplish that mission, especially when faced with backyards with so little ground to work with? Think simple and small, Irvine says. The solution lies in manipulating scale and proportion, in color and form. The garden design often doesn't need to fool the eye; it just needs to distract it.

In Abrams' garden, Irvine removed a pepper tree growing in the center. She also took out a huge 'Cecile Brunner' rose and masses of bronze Phormium, opening the view and maximizing deck space -- and leaving a smidgen of ground for pavers and plants.

She scaled down all elements of the Asian-inspired landscape. Like carefully wrought bonsai, Abrams' plants, stones and sculpture captivate and deceive the eye. With a terra-cotta chiminea, a table and chairs at one end, the 10-by-25-foot flagstone patio is barely large enough for slow dancing, but the brain perceives something larger.

Garden designers use other ploys to manipulate space and alter perception. Most are based on principles of linear perspective devised by 15th century Italian artists. A wide path can foreshorten a view, whereas a narrow one can create the perception of distance. An undulating walkway that disappears behind a curve connotes the existence of more garden, even when there is none.