When attempting to create a unified garden, scale is one of the most important considerations. Every element in the garden has an effect on every other element. A garden in which one element overpowers every other element may feel out of balance. This is not to say that you can't have a large plant in a small garden, just that the plant will need to be carefully placed and everything else in the garden will have to relate to this plant. The large plant will set that scale that other plants are compared to. A plant which would be impressive in a grouping of small plants may seem unimportant next to a large plant.
All gardens are created by and for humans, so the scale of a garden is always human. Even the grandest gardens are on a human scale, they were designed to impress humans with their grand sense of scale. A landscape garden can be created in a small space; the Japanese are masters of this art. They create the illusion of greater space by carefully controlling the size of trees and shrubs. Plants are also carefully selected for their leaves; plants with large leaves are planted towards the viewer, plants with small leaves are planted in the background. Gardens like these are intended to be viewed as pictures, if a human steps into the garden, the small scale of the garden becomes obvious and the illusion is shattered.
Most gardens are connected with private homes, apartment houses or public buildings; public parks are an exception, they often aren't connected with important buildings. In a private garden, the house is the garden's main reason for existing, the garden exists in relation to the house. Because of this, the house sets the scale for the garden. It is important that all architectural elements, such as paving, paths and walls be in scale with the house. Paths, decks and terraces are more often underscaled than overscaled. A terrace which is the size of a large living room may feel underscaled. This is partially because the clouds in the sky make it clear that the outdoor ceiling is much loftier than any indoor ceiling. You can have walls the same height as indoor walls, but unless the terrace has some sort of roof, the dimensions will be different from indoors. Also, people expect to have more freedom of movement when they are outdoors, so a terrace the size of your living room may feel more cramped than your living room.
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