Urban Gardening 101: Simple Solutions for Simple Spaces


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Urban living often comes at the cost of usable outdoor space. Small yards flanked by fences and neighboring houses are fairly typical, often leaving you with odd shaped, or narrow choices pertaining to landscape design. Many times this means you visions of a garden have to be put on hold- or do they?

Urban gardening is not as hard as you think, and being able to provide your family with fresh produce that you grow yourself is not a pipe dream simply due to a lack of perceived space. Even if you aren’t interested in a vegetable garden, you can easily brighten up your spaces with blooming, fragrant flowers. This is also true for apartment dwellers, as multiple options are available for your dreams of green vegetation and bright blooms.

Indoor Gardening Options

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If you have a serious lack of outdoor space or are limited to a small patio or balcony, you don't have to give up your visions of a garden. And if you are willing to provide space somewhere in your home, there are options available to support healthy garden plants. A large variety of plants, vegetables and even dwarf fruits included, are easily grown within pots. All they need is a soil for nutrients (and occasional feeding), light, and water. But what if you have limited sunlight exposure?

Artificial Sunlight to the Rescue

Grow lights are amazing solutions to providing the light needed when sunlight is lacking. For example, the best Advanced Platinum LED P-Series of grow lights allow for amazing coverage to provide synthetic ‘daylight’ to your plants- no matter whether you want to support healthy growth, or want to influence healthy blooms and vegetable, or even fruit, production.

Grow lights provide variable wavelengths of light specific to certain stages of plant growth. Plants use sunlight to influence photosynthesis, which in turn feeds the plant. When your plant receives the correct type and amount of light should be getting, it will thrive and produce for you. Therefore, it is important to provide the correct type of light in a dependable, quality solution.

Working within Small Yards

If you have an outdoor space to work with, don’t despair just because it isn’t as large as you would like. Even though it may have initially only looked good enough to store a few things in, or provide a small sitting area, any outdoor space has potential to support a garden of any type.

You can easily create narrow garden beds along fences and property lines to serve as a border in order to support a single row of vegetation of choice. Mix in a few flowering perennials, or even annuals each spring to some vegetable choices to allow for both practicality and aesthetics. After all, growing your own produce is budget-friendly, as well as a healthy choice.  If you feel garden beds are not an option for you, you may also want to consider one of the following:

  • Hanging Gardens

Many people overlook the unused potential of fences or wall surfaces, as well as the space above you. You can affix supportive materials to just about any surface with the correct tools to provide a vertical gardening solution or allow for hanging pots. You also can create overhead supports, such as pergolas, for added framework to hang your plants upon.

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Image Source: Pixabay

  • Raised or Potted Gardens

As mentioned earlier a wide variety of plants can thrive in a container. Raised garden beds can be customized to fit the space you have, or work in tandem with large containers to provide growing space. You can even grow trees and vines in large pots to create shady spots and backdrops to your other vegetative choices.

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Image Source: Pixabay

What to Remember:

Urban gardening doesn’t have to be an overwhelming challenge and is easily obtained as long as you can find a place for your plants to sink their roots into. Water and fertilizer are easy to come by, and if you have any concerns about light, that also is easy to provide with the use of a grow light option. Small space may require some innovative planning, but there is no reason to completely disregard your gardening visions due to a lack of a large yard. Choose plants that grow more upright than out, and get creative in your plant choices to provide a mix of both perennials and annuals to fill your garden beds and pots with.

Conclusion

Urban gardening is more than obtainable and is a fun addition to both indoor and outdoor living spaces. Before committing to certain plants, be sure to do a little research surrounding their growing habits to ensure you can fit them where you want them, and think about how you will best allow them light through the seasons. Otherwise- happy landscaping!

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