Have you ever wanted to have a dream garden full of flowers and vegetables but don’t have the space? Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to have a massive yard in order to have a great looking garden. You can have a small garden on a balcony, next to your front door or even inside your home.
There are numerous methods to achieve a wonderful garden even in an extremely small space. Whether you live in a new age minimalistic home or a small apartment with no planting areas, there is quite a lot you can do using planters, pots and bespoke garden areas even in the smallest outdoor areas.
It is even possible to make use of hydroponic systems and LED lights for indoor areas that don’t get any sunlight. Or, you could also make use of a couple of wall planters indoors that gets sunlight to grow your very own indoor garden.
If having a garden that suits your style and needs outside seems impossible given your current living arrangements or due to the weather outside, you don’t have to worry.
We have a list of tips on how to grow plants or a garden in your small space and also ensure your indoor garden is flourishing with the right mix of house plants in no time. Let us begin!!
Locations For Your Small Garden
No matter what small space you live in, you can find room for a small garden. When I say small garden, that may mean one pot of flowers, one potted indoor plant, one hanging plant or even just some herbs on your countertop. You don’t have to grow a ton of plants or vegetables for it to be considering gardening.
If you are interested in creating a garden in an apartment, it is important that it is kept small. You have to take advantage of the available space, you could place something close to your front door, perhaps a little patch. If you have a balcony, even better. You really do not want to do too much, it is important that your small garden is simplified.
If you have no outdoor spacing in your small apartment, there are many choices for indoor plants. There are even products to help you grow sun loving plants and vegetables inside a windowless home. Let’s look at these locations in detail with some tips for types of planters for each location.
Balcony
A balcony in this sense is an outdoor space without any yard to have a typical garden. Whether your balcony is on the ground floor or 10 stories high doesn’t matter. If your balcony is covered, you will need to know how much sun your balcony gets a day to pick the proper plants or vegetables to grow.
A North facing balcony gets very little direct sunlight, while a South facing balcony gets a lot of sunlight. An East facing balcony gets sunlight during the morning while the West facing balcony gets the hottest sun in the afternoons.
Knowing which direction your balcony faces will make it easier to choose the appropriate plants that grow well in the scenarios above.
You’ll want some shade loving plants for a North facing balcony and a lot of sun loving plants for a South balcony. East or West can grow sun loving plants, but you’ll need very hardy plants for the West since the sun will be more intense.
What you choose to put those plants in are based on how big of a balcony that you have. If you have a rail on your balcony, you can hang plants on the rail. Rail planters will either slip over the rail or have hooks to hang over the rail.
You can place different size pots or planters on the ground around your balcony. If your balcony is very shallow, you’ll want a narrow trough like planter since you don’t have a long of room.
If you don’t have much floor space another option is a vertical wall planter or hanging planters off the ceiling if your balcony is covered.
Front Door
If you have a small area of dirt around your front door, like a townhome, this is a great area for a small garden. Same principle applies as balcony gardening, you should find out which direction your front door faces to locate the appropriate plants.
If you don’t have any dirt but do have direct sunlight, a planter will work well in this area. With similar ideas as the balcony, the size and how much sunlight will determine what type of plants you can grow. Also, the types of planters used will be based on how much floor space you have.
Indoors
If you have no room anywhere outdoor to put your plants, you still have many options for an indoor garden. Any window that gets direct sunlight will be a great location for a window sill planter or a tall planter underneath.
Certain indoor plants don’t need much sun at all which means you can place them anywhere you like. Make sure your Indoor planters have a tray to catch the water run off so they don’t ruin your floors. Same thing applies to your indoor hanging planters. They also need a tray underneath to catch any excess water so be careful how much water you give your indoor plants.
If you want to grow vegetables or sun loving plants indoors, you’ll need lights that simulate sunlight such as florescent based lights or LED lights made especially for growing plants.
If you want a system for growing indoor plants or vegetables that is super simple with lights already included, then a smart hydroponic system is your best choice. We bought the Smart Garden 9 right before Christmas and are currently setting it up and testing it out.
Here’s a look at the 5 Best Indoor Hydroponic Grow Systems.
Why should you have an small garden?
Plants are good for your mental health
The Journal of Health Psychology states that gardening can be a great stress reliever. A little over 30 minutes of gardening can help lower cortisol hormones which are the fight-or-flight response, according to the study.
This is extremely important, when you consider the additional stress levels we have had to endure over the last couple of years, due to the numerous issues and problems associated with the pandemic.
So rather than taking time to binge watch your next streaming service series, you should instead pick your gardening tools up and get to work. You are bound to feel much better.
Growing plants can help provide you with a feeling of self-sufficiency and resilience
The surge of growing a garden or plants, particularly during this time of the year can help contribute to you having a greater feeling of empowerment. This enables you to become more self sustainable and resilient.
There is actually quite a lot to be said about someone that makes the decision to grow their own plants, especially when they are the easiest vegetables to grow.
Having a small garden can be a great way to leverage upon your space and level it up
If you happen to spend most of your time at home, it makes perfect sense that you make your space actually feel like home. Beginning a small garden in your space can be a great way to liven up your home and provide it with a new dynamic.
Having some color specifically something green and being near the presence of nature whilst still being inside can help ease any tension in the air, as well as providing your space some peace. And for what it is worth, you can get some great pictures out of that space.
Having plants can help provide a sense of control especially when you are in situations that you do not typically have control over
You would be surprised to find out that quite a lot of people have gone green since the pandemic broke. Gardening it seems has made an astounding comeback and it is no surprise given that it can be quite calming, and it provides people something to do especially at a time when there are quite a number of things out of our control.
Plants, particularly the edible varieties require a bit of attention and it provides us with a sense of purpose and something that you can take care of. Think of caring for your small garden as having the escape value and getting the opportunity to feel like you are actually doing something positive. When you have a positive control over your environment, you feel much better for it.
Growing plants can provide you with something else to do with your hands
If you happen to be in a weird pattern of not knowing what to do, something that we are all too familiar with these past couple of years, it can be quite imperative to have some form of stability in at least one aspect of your life.
When you make the decision to plant a small garden, you make the cognitive decision to follow the birth process of a plant, from a seed to a seedling and then a flower. This enables you to have some sense of predictability or rhythm to the madness that is the mundane.
You can see it as something to look forward to and depend on. These last couple of years have been anything but normal, having an indoor greenhouse can offer you a way to make sense of the chaos.
Having a small garden enables you to surround yourself with indoor greenery provides a sense of community and resilience
There is something about an indoor garden particularly if you live in an apartment complex that brings people together. This is more so true when the indoor greenhouse is large enough to house a collaborative effort. This communal triumph over growing plants, particularly when you begin to see your plants fruit, or you pick your first harvest.
You can exchange tips with neighbors and friends and even share the food you’ve grown. You can stand on the porch watering your herb pot while waving to the next-door neighbor standing on her porch doing the same thing. It feels like you are doing something that’s bigger than yourself and that is no small feat.
Flowers that Require Little Upkeep:
The flowers and indoor hanging plants that do not require a lot of upkeep are those that have no need for deadheading and even if they do require very little of it. To clarify, deadheading means to remove any spent blooms of a flower.
Just because a flower is easy to grow does not mean it doesn’t require a lot of care. Flowers, such as, marigolds are perhaps one of the most seamless flowers to grow, however, they can never be termed to be low maintenance. This is down to the fact that they require quite a lot of deadheading just so that they can look great.
When you begin to think of your small garden, you should consider that it should be low maintenance and that means the flowering plants you select have to take this into account.
If you’re planting in a small space outdoors, It is imperative that you refrain from flowers that are termed aggressive, vigorous spreaders or invasive. You really do not want to have to deal with clearing out a couple of seemingly weedy plants in a couple of years just because you wanted something that was low maintenance.
When selecting indoor flowering plants, you have to consider plants that have the following characteristics:
● Flowers that are not too picky in terms of soil
● Flowers that are not vigorous spreaders
● Flowers that do not require a lot of deadheading
● Flowers that do not require staking
● Flowers that able to survive a little bit of neglect
● Flowers that aren’t prone to diseases or pest issues
If there is anything you should remember, Perennials should be seen as the foundation of a small garden’s flower bed. This is because they tend to come back every single year. Conversely, annual flowers, have to be replanted each year, however, they do tend to provide a bit of color that remains constant during the entire growing season.
Perennials suited to receiving sunlight or partial sun
Yarrow
Coneflower
Catmint
Daylilies
Salvia
Black-eyed Susan
Veronica
Shasta Daisies
Perennial Geranium (cranesbill)
Blanket Flower
Russian Sage
Autumn Joy Sedum
Penstemon
Low maintenance annuals that require sun light or partial sun
Moss roses
Vinca
Calibrachoa
Supertunias
Angelonia
Lantana
Alyssum
Cosmos
Low maintenance perennials more suited to the shade aka low light plants
Astilbe
Ferns (not ostrich)
Hosta
Coral bells
Low maintenance annuals more suited to the shade aka low light plants
Impatiens
Begonia
Polka dot plant
New Guinea Impatiens
Coleus
Important tips on properly maintain a low maintenance small garden
Watering
When it comes to gardening, whether indoors or outdoors, watering is perhaps one of the most bothersome chores available. If you are really interested in having an indoor greenhouse that is low maintenance, you might consider installing some sort of irrigation system near your indoor garden. There are numerous out there for purchase and the majority of them enable you to connect a hose to a timer, letting that chore handle itself. If you are the forgetful type or are not really interested in remembering to water your plants, you might consider getting a timer for any water faucet you have. This tool can also be quite useful when you are going away for an extended period of time.
Weeding
It might not seem like it, but weeding is a garden chore that you still have to do in a small garden. The weeds you get tend to come from seeds in the soil or mulch used, particularly if you do not use pre-packaged soil or mulch and have been sourcing for it by yourself.
The most effective way to get rid of weeds is to simply uproot them. If you are consistent in your efforts to get rid of weeds, then the number of weeds that appear in your small garden tend to decrease over time. What you have to do is simply take about 20 to 25 minutes each week to conduct a weed pull through your home plants flower bed.
Deadheading
When it comes to a gardening chore that is commonly overlooked or neglected, deadheading takes the cake. While the flowers on the plants listed above are either self deadheading, meaning that the spent blooms simply fall off the plant, or those that require just a little bit of deadheading, there is still nothing wrong with taking the time out to tidy up your flower bed, ensuring that your home plants are continuously looking their best.
Just as with weeding, you have to set out a bit of time, anything from 15 to 20 minutes a week, depending on how large your small garden is to deadhead your plants. It is actually possible to combine the process of deadheading with weeding, basically killing two birds with one stone, to ensue that both chores are done at the very same time.
Conclusion
No matter where you live you can have a garden that makes you proud. Whether you have a small patch of dirt in your backyard, front door or no dirt at all, you can grow any type of plant. One other place to grow plants if you have a small space or live in a cold area is a greenhouse.
Even indoors, you can grow enough vegetables to feed your entire family. Hopefully we’ve give you some great ideas to start your small garden today.
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