My friend around the block has a more square courtyard than ours and with that deeper space (though still tiny) she has made a garden that encloses and surrounds.
Unlike my own back yard (and our immediate neighbor's) she could create little islands with circles of paths to walk around them. And her boundary view is not one long fence, but a smaller bit of fencing further out from the house.
The eye is led down a path toward the back fence, but the fence itself disappears. With the greater depth of her squared area, she could create plantings in stages toward the back, rather than a more linear row along the fence line.
Mounded islands with tiny stone paths wandering around them make the whole space feel so much bigger. And of course her plantings are mature, full and crowded, adding to the wonderful sense of enclosure.
And while my blooming plants have gone by, her roses were flowering and her agastache was huge and she had tucked lots and lots of pots -- even fall mums - in and around everything.
It's a more chaotic, stuffed garden than mine, but all the little paths and the pots tame it. The mounded center islands create some height and variation.
What I love most is the crabapple near the house. It is limbed up just enough to sit under, the branches come low over the table but clear your head as you sit at the patio table. They stretch out horizontally and shade the table.
And they serve as a frame to view the garden beyond. Her crabapple is the reason I planted one at the side of our lower patio -- but it will be a long while before mine reaches the gnarled, interesting, shady embrace of hers.
At the foot of her crabapple is a small patch of brilliant blue plumbago (Ceratostigma). Very pretty. Mine are still (after 4 years or more) patchy things that bloom, but look puny and have yet to spread.
She even has a little water bubbler that is near the patio table and sparkles in the sun as it flows into a little bed of rocks.
A gap in the trees provides a window view out to the tawny grass meadow beyond her back fence. It's a lovely sight as you sit, enveloped and embraced in the lushness of a busy, close garden.
I probably wouldn't have the wild abandon of her style in my own space, but I love the elements in hers. I like that her space is deep enough to draw the eye away and planted thickly enough to hide where you are going as you wander paths. It's such a tiny area, but it lives very large.
Her advice on creating this garden: water. And water some more. Her whole space is irrigated of course, but I suspect she waters more than I have been doing. I feel like my drip system is keeping things alive but I think I could water more. She has the same once a year soil fertilization from Coates that I have, but the size and lushness is from more water than you'd think would be needed.