Some of the loveliest ground in Aspen is small — a strip of lawn behind a picket fence on one of the old cross streets, a courtyard tucked beside a gabled Victorian, a bench-sized garden that catches sun for four hours and then hands the block back to shade. Escape Garden Design works at that scale, where every foot counts and the design has to earn its keep. Beds get shaped and planted, the lawn is mowed and edged so the green reads as a deliberate panel rather than leftover space, and the whole thing is trimmed and cleaned out spring and fall. In June, when the peonies come and the days run past nine o'clock, a little garden like that can hold a person for an hour. That is the aim: a place at the back door worth stepping into and staying in.