A big garden is a delight until -- suddenly or gradually -- it's not. All those magnificent flower beds, the great, sweeping green lawn and your own personal arboretum might become more of a burden than a benefit when the kids are grown and gone and you're ready to pack your bags and see the world. You still want to stop and smell the roses, all right, but perhaps just one rose bush is all you need.

Downsizing in the garden doesn't have to be demoralizing.

"It's interesting. For me, it's good. I can be creative with that," says Kristopher Dabner, owner of The Greensman garden design business in Kansas City. Dabner often works with longtime clients to redefine their gardens after years of residence in one house. He helps other clients who have moved from a large property make the transition, gracefully and happily, to a smaller space. Yes, you can take your grandmother's peony plant with you, he tells them, but "think of this as a new opportunity to be creative, and to think about your garden in a different light."

Distilling the beauty of a big garden down into a more compact frame can be exciting and invigorating. It might involve putting smaller spaces to work for more than one purpose, and drawing on your experience with a large garden to choose the plants that look great through all four seasons, Dabner suggests. Shrubs that bloom in spring, produce bright berries that attract birds through the summer, take on brilliant autumn colors, and have interesting structure that reveals itself in the winter, more than earn their keep in a garden, he says.

A smaller but no less beautiful garden will call for a choice selection of smaller trees and shrubs. Dwarf conifers and small shrubs may need a little pruning from time to time to keep them trim and tidy, but "they don't need hacking back," Dabner says. Instead of a full-sized ginkgo tree -- a great pleasure in a big garden -- plant a dwarf ginkgo, he says, "and you can have the great texture and glorious fall color on a scale that works with the scale of your garden."

Mary Palmer Dargan, of Dargan Landscape Architects in Cashiers, North Carolina, also takes a special interest in downsizing for clients who no longer have the time, budget or desire to work with big garden spaces. Baby boomers are moving in this direction, she says. Often, downsizing is precipitated by a life-changing event: The kids move away, a spouse dies or you buy a summer home halfway across the country. Older clients may not be as agile as they once were, "and there are hazards you didn't even think of," she says, such as negotiating a winding path of rough-cut fieldstones or climbing up and down steps between two garden levels.

Dargan helped her mother reinterpret her garden when "she didn't need all those garden rooms" anymore and no longer needed a big, flat lawn for parties under a tent. You don't have to move to make the transition to a smaller space, Dargan says: Just change your focus. Make the most of the back porch; add on a pretty terrace or a courtyard. Replace flowerbeds, which need and deserve a lot of attention, with fine shrubs. Add lighting so you can enjoy your garden late in the evening without venturing out. If possible, let garden-maintenance companies handle the mowing.

Clients who shrink their gardens, either by moving or by redefining what they already have, often don't want to give up entertaining outdoors, and they don't have to. "Socializing is important," Dargan says, but maybe you don't need a great big picnic table any more. Scale it all down.

Garden art and fountains are high on the list of handsome and undemanding garden features clients want in their smaller-scale gardens, Dargan says. Indulge yourself, she tells them. "This is the last time they are going to do it, and they really want something of lasting value, something that resonates with their heart."

No matter what your circumstances or situation, the best way to get started downsizing is to start with some judicious editing, Dargan says. Simplify your flowerbeds. Limit your collections. Take advantage of a lifetime of experience. Concentrate on plants that do not need pampering, and plant them in generous sweeps and repeating patterns throughout your garden. Changes like these will make your garden simpler to care for.

Good design, careful decisions and pinpoint focus make the transition exciting. "Clients tell me, 'I love my garden so much more now,'" Dabner says. Smaller gardens really are not a compromise: There's still plenty of room for charm.

SOURCES

-- Kristopher Dabner, The Greensman, thegreensman.com

-- Mary Palmer Dargan, Dargan Landscape Architects, dargan.com

Plant a library in your garden, then step back and watch what happens. Little Free Libraries give you a chance to cultivate relationships and your garden at the same time.

Little Free Libraries are small, freestanding libraries, on the scale of an extra-large mailbox. They're mounted on a sturdy post in the front yard, usually close to the sidewalk, and stocked (by you) with a limited, but choice, selection of books. Neighbors, dog-walkers and passers-by can take a book from the library or leave a book of their own. Each book is one of a kind, and the inventory is constantly turning over.

These little libraries can be designed and painted to look like schoolhouses, barns, fire stations or cozy bungalows. By their very nature, they are garden art. Like a child's playhouse, a potting shed or even a big urn on a pedestal, they add an architectural element to the garden, which in turn opens up opportunities for interesting landscaping around them. But there is more to these structures than garden decor. They reveal something more than flowers do about your interests and your aesthetic sense, and they're likely to start a few neighborly conversations.

When you install a Little Free Library in your garden, you're joining an informal worldwide network of like-minded people. The Little Free Library movement, which started in Wisconsin in 2009, has grown into a far-flung community of 50,000 Little Free Libraries, which are found in all 50 states and more than 70 countries. By the end of 2017, the organization hopes to double the number of little libraries, to 100,000.

Gardens and reading go pretty naturally hand in hand. Good gardening always requires a fair amount of homework, for one thing, and escaping to the garden with a good book is a time-honored way to take a break from the busy, buzzing world. Reading in a garden, in the company of birds and flowers, really does make the workaday world seem far away. Some Little Free Libraries incorporate a bench into their designs, so people curious about the books can sit down and have a look before they make a selection.

Having a Little Free Library in the front yard also changes the dynamics of your garden and your neighborhood. Passers-by and neighbors may have always taken an interest in your landscaping, but when they stop to peruse the selection of books in the library, they have an excuse to look around at the garden more closely than they otherwise might. If you happen to be outside when someone stops to check out the books, you might find yourself answering questions about your favorite hostas or the best way to prune hydrangeas -- and a neighborly conversation is off to a good start.

Place a few steppingstones around the base of your library, and make room for a few tough and hardy plants. Sedums, daylilies, mums, daisies and small evergreen shrubs will enliven the space and the library, and will also shrug off a certain amount of wear and tear. Avoid plants with thorns: This is not the place for shrub roses or prickly cactus.

Enhance your visitors' experience of your Little Free Library with some fragrant plants. This would be a good spot for a pot of mint or some rosemary, basil or thyme.

Climbing plants, such as an annual black-eyed Susan vine or a perennial clematis, will clamber happily up the post and make your little library look like an old-fashioned cottage in a garden. To help bring the garden up to eye level, you could even put a green roof on your library; try succulents, mosses, small ornamental grasses (such as blue fescue) or even a strip of turf from a garden shop. You can easily cut the grass on the roof with a pair of kitchen scissors.

James Baggett, the editor of Country Gardens magazine, maintains a Little Free Library in Des Moines, Iowa. He shares the task with a neighbor, a little girl who has been his assistant librarian since she was 9 years old. Together, they stock their little library with books for young adults and for grown-ups, too. "I like to think ours is one of the better-curated Little Free Libraries," Baggett says.

There are no rules for stocking your library. Gardening books are fine -- as are field guides, cookbooks and picture books for kids. After a short time, you'll begin to get a feel for the books that are popular with borrowers and contributors in your neighborhood.

The seasons will come and go, and your library visitors will get to know your garden pretty well: When they tuck a book under their arm, you can bet they're also borrowing a few gardening ideas to take home to their own yard. Maybe they'll even plant a library of their own, and the word will keep spreading.

SOURCES

-- Most communities welcome Little Free Libraries, but before you put up a little library in your garden, check local zoning laws. The Little Free Library website (littlefreelibrary.org) includes how-to information and FAQs that may help. The website also has links to plans, kits and prebuilt libraries.

-- Several Etsy shops specialize in ready-made Little Free Libraries. (etsy.com)

-- There is even a book about Little Free Libraries; "The Little Free Library Book," by Margret Aldrich (Coffee House Press, $20).

-- For more ideas, check Pinterest, Instagram and Flickr.

A well-designed vegetable garden is a wonderful source of fresh produce for the chef, but it can also be a favorite garden destination, a place to retreat to and relax. If you plan it right, a kitchen garden can be the prettiest planting on your property.

Start by choosing a site that meets the requirements of the plants. Vegetables of all kinds flourish in sun, so find a spot that gets a good eight hours of direct sunlight. Your site should be level, on a part of your property that you walk past every day, and convenient to the kitchen. It's important to have a nearby source of water so you don't have to drag a hose or carry watering cans too far. These are the basics. After that, let your imagination go.

"Design is often what is missing from the vegetable garden, yet it is the most important element to enjoying the garden," says Ellen Ecker Ogden, who recommends including a bench, table, pergola or arbor in the design to make it more inviting. "It's a nice way to say, 'I like it here. I don't just come here to work and pull weeds,'" she says.

Ogden, the author of "The Complete Kitchen Garden," went to art school, but "then I turned into a gardener," she says. She balanced her interests by becoming a kitchen-garden designer. Her four-square garden in Vermont is as pretty as it is productive, with lettuce and greens growing in sweeping curves, lozenges and circles instead of traditional rows. "It's really a visual thing for me as much as it is a food thing," she says.

Most people start with a space that's too big. "They have an appetite to grow everything," Ogden says. Instead, pick and choose your crops just as you would at a market. The selection of fresh produce at local markets expands every year, so maybe you don't need to grow your own eggplant or zucchini. Instead, you might want to concentrate on salad greens, Ogden says, especially if you're a new gardener. "They grow fast, there are not many pests and they have really high nutrition per square foot," she says.

Instead of growing six tomato plants, you might decide to make room for just one or two, perhaps a cherry tomato and one other. That leaves room for herbs, such as basil and oregano, to help those tomatoes taste even better.

Color should also play a role in your choices, just as it does in flower beds. Plant a mixture of red and green lettuces, or train golden wax beans up a tepee. Flowers grown right alongside your vegetables not only fill the garden with bright colors, but also attract pollinators and beneficial insects that help manage pests in your vegetable beds. Ogden loves to plant nasturtiums in her kitchen garden. She likes calendulas and marigolds, especially the little signet marigolds called "Lemon Gem." She also relies on the flowers of some vegetable crops to add a flourish. Scarlet runner beans have bright red blooms that attract hummingbirds. Okra flowers look like sunny yellow hibiscus.

Texture is a big element in interesting gardens, too. Frilly lettuces look like a luxurious ruffled petticoat around the edge of a vegetable garden. Shiny red and green peppers sparkle among the foliage. The feathery tops of carrots and the spiky foliage of onions and leeks give the eye a lot of contrast to enjoy. Herbs of all kinds add still more texture, as well as fragrance.

To give a vegetable garden even more character, build upward. In Ogden's garden, an arbor lifts pole beans up into the light. Peas, cucumbers and even melons can be grown on a sturdy trellis. Just remember, tall elements should be placed toward the back of the garden (which should be on the north side) so they do not shade out crops in front.

Sprawling plants may need a place of their own. Especially if you have a small garden, pots are a great way to grow more crops without giving up much space in the ground. Ogden plants pumpkins in half a whiskey barrel near her driveway instead of giving them space in her kitchen garden. Last year, she also grew tomatoes, summer squash and potatoes in pots.

Vegetable gardening doesn't have to be hard or expensive, Ogden says. Start small, with beds no more than 4 feet wide. Sketch out a pretty planting plan on paper, and leave plenty of room for generous paths. Make liberal use of steppingstones so you don't compact your soil while working in your beds. Sow seeds or plant transplants of a good variety of crops you can harvest over a long season. Then, look forward to spending some time in your garden every day, inspecting its progress, thinning and weeding if necessary, and harvesting a few leaves of lettuce or fresh tomatoes for your dinner salad. And don't forget that garden bench. "Food is important and functional, but it's important to me to have the garden look nice, too," Ogden says. In a well-designed kitchen garden, you can count on a bumper crop of satisfaction.

SIDEBAR

Getting It Right

A great design is just about all that separates a vegetable garden that's a chore from one that is a pleasure, says Ellen Ecker Ogden. Here are a few of her tips:

-- Don't overwhelm yourself. Start small. A 4-by-4-foot or 4-by-8-foot bed may be just right.

-- Look for ideas everywhere, then come up with a design that works in your space.

-- Don't plant in rows: Embellish the layout by making a big "X" with lettuce plants, or plant a checkerboard pattern of greens and flowers. Try planting radishes in a diamond shape. "It's a lot more fun," Ogden says.

-- Make wide paths. The main path through your garden should be 4 feet wide, Ogden says. Secondary paths can be narrower, but they need not be.

-- Make room for garden furniture or art. "Put some personality" out there, Ogden says. "I love art in the garden."

-- Choose plants wisely. Ogden advocates what she calls her "80-20 rule." Plant 80 percent of the garden with things you can't do without, and 20 percent with crops you haven't tried before. This may be your summer to try artichokes, for example, or cinnamon basil. "You should always be learning," she says.

-- Place the garden close to the house. "People say they have a problem with deer, or with groundhogs," she says. "It's usually because the garden is too far away."

-- Go up: A trellis for crops or flowers will make the garden more interesting, and it will use the available space and light more efficiently.

-- Ogden considers color, texture and height when she makes her designs. "One of my favorite combinations is artichokes with Empress of India nasturtiums and purple basil," she says.

-- Spend time in your garden every day, but don't call it work. "Tell yourself, 'I'm going to go out and play in the garden,'" Ogden says. "It will give you some light-heartedness."

SOURCES

Books, magazines and garden websites are full of inspiration to help you design a pretty, successful vegetable garden. Ellen Ecker Ogden's book, "The Complete Kitchen Garden," includes recipes for kitchen gardens with different themes. You don't have to choose just one -- flip through, pick out elements you like and combine them in your own design, she suggests. Check her website, ellenogden.com.

-- Gardener's Supply Co. (gardeners.com) has a free online planning tool to help customers design their own vegetable gardens. The tool is especially helpful for raised-bed gardens and square-foot gardening, which concentrate on making efficient use of space. The company also has several preplanned designs and sells the seeds to help you turn the plan into reality.

-- Mother Earth News (motherearthnews.com) has a vegetable-garden planning app to help readers design, plant and maintain a vegetable garden. You can experiment with designs, generate a planting guide and make notes to remind yourself to rotate crops from year to year.

(For editorial questions, please contact Clint Hooker at chooker@amuniversal.com.)