Vertical gardening is a fun way to have a year round garden by growing the plants in pots up a wall rather than in the ground. Space often makes it difficult to have a garden for someone wanting fresh vegetables or herbs in an urban area.
The other kind of vertical growing is a living wall, it is where lush plants are suspended and nurtured to provide a beautiful appearance and to take advantage of the power of nature to purify the air. In this article, we will be focusing on vertical gardening; how to build and care for maintaining one for in your urban dwelling. Here are points to keep in mind.
In order to stay healthy, all plants require water, sunlight, oxygen, nutrients and well controlled. It is actually easier to maintain these requirements with vertical gardening because you do not have the typical problems (such as washing away of nutrients due to heavy rains). You can easily give your vertical garden the right amount of sunlight by placing your garden board close to a sunny area and slanting slightly (around 30 degrees). The amount of water that you need to routinely consistently care for your plants can be done on a per-programmed schedule a drippier system or other forms irrigation method. This is far less time consuming and does not leave the same sort of mess.
Buying or building a vertical garden may be easier than you think. If you want to build the garden outdoors a fence can provide enough support to begin arranging your plants. A wall facing to the south will provide the most sun for your plants. You can cut your own pots out of 2-liter plastic soda bottle, milk jugs or yogurt containers for the bottoms. On chain linked fences u-shaped hooks work well, and on wooded walls you may need to use brackets to attach the pots to the wall. There are also special types of stainless steel containers that come ready to affix to walls. If snow and rain make it difficult year round for outdoor growing, take that as an opportunity to get creative with your garden. You can begin with a cylinder shaped metal plant holder to see how you do them move up to a room divider. As you become more confident you may want to graduate to a ceiling to floor display, remember in making transitions to consider a few important details. First, the amount of soil used in the pot may make the plant and pot to heavy for a vertical indoor wall. There are a variety of garden wall units on the market however most can only use for shallow-rooted plants. These walls are great for small plants and herbs (you’ll find that proper plant selections is one of the first vertical gardening “how to ” steps that you’ll some to learn over time).
In order to keep from destroying the wall, use a separate sheet of board to keep moisture away from the wall. Place plastic or a pleasant looking oilcloth on the board and either hang the plants, or build pockets or shelves to hold the pots. If you going to hang your plants, place them at different levels from the top of the wall to cover a larger area of space. If you’re unable to place the wall facing a south facing window, you may want to use a mounted grow light on the ceiling to provide help with needed sunshine. Another technique is to string plants together and hang them from the ceiling, that way you do not have to use a board. This ceiling hanging type of indoor vertical growing is rapidly gaining in popularity. The key to any of the methods that you choose is maintenance. Check your plants daily and be alert to any growth problems or rot. Following these easy vertical gardening how to guide should provide you with the information you need to get started and you can learn the rest as you go along. You will find that growing plants vertically will give you a sense of pleasure not to mention delicious vegetables and fruit throughout the year.