Vertical gardening offers gardeners with limited space opportunities
for every gardening type. Also growing plants on trellises and
garden arbors can help add shade to your yard to help cool off your
landscaping and your home and fences offer the perfect support for
climbing plants.
Vertical gardening can allow you to work standing up, so you can save
your back a lot of wear and tear. Hanging baskets and grow bags
are a great way to grow both flowers and vegetables in a small vertical
space. These items are very popular with older gardeners who may
find it difficult to stoop to work on their plants. Additionally,
growing plants in this manner means fewer problems with pests and
diseases. Keeping your vegetables off the ground will keep them
free of soil-borne diseases and many pests can't reach your plants.
However, even those with extensive amounts of space enjoy the beauty of
gardening upward. Extending the garden vertically adds a whole
new dimension to the planting area. Vertical gardening provides
an attractive way to screen an unwanted view, add interest to blank
walls, or to separate the garden into individual compartments.
Vining plants like clematis, honeysuckle, grape, Virginia creeper, and
ivies are natural choices for elevation. Their beauty will cover
walls, arbors, and gateways adding visual appeal throughout the
changing seasons.
Fences are often treated as merely functional elements. Openwork fences
offer more possibilities than solid fences and fences offer the perfect
support for many vining plants. In addition to vines, window
boxes and containers filled with blooming annuals and perennials add to
the vertical landscape. Shelves mounted at various levels on
blank walls make excellent sites for plant- filled containers.
Hanging baskets surrounding doors, windows, porches, and balconies are
an ideal solution for growing a variety of plants in a small
area. Pots of various heights grouped together add vertical
appeal as well as making maintenance easier.
Terraces are being used more and more by homeowners whose lots consist
of steep sloping areas. They provide level areas of usable
planting space. Steps are often needed to make the terraced area
accessible. The stairway can be edged informally with creeping
groundcovers or with plant-filled containers creating a more visual
impact.
When choosing the plants for your area, be sure to consider the
maintenance level required by the plant. Some will need annual pruning
and maintenance to keep them looking their best. Hedges will need
annual pruning as well. Containers will need watering on a daily
basis. Some will require even more water as the plant's root
system fills the container and in warm weather. Regular
fertilization will also be necessary to keep them blooming.
Several vegetables can also be grown upward. Pole beans, lima
beans, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and squash are
examples of vegetables that can be grown vertically. Squash,
melon, and pumpkin fruit will need some form of support as they develop
to prevent them from breaking off. Small-fruited varieties are
the best choice for vertical gardens. Cucumbers will develop nice
and straight rather than curved. Tomatoes often produce earlier
and larger fruits when staked and trained. Another advantage is
cleaner fruit.
Using the square trellis shown supports climbing plants and its
platforms support annuals. You can also add bird feeders and
birdhouses for extra interest.
Try training peas, beans, cucumbers, eggplants, melons, or okra up this
structure. You can intersperse decorative plants, such as
marigolds, or lower plants, such as strawberries, to make this an
interesting and tasty planting. Don't use treated lumber if
you're growing food.
If you'd rather not feed the birds, or if you're trying to grow fruits
or vegetables that you don't wish to share with local critters, omit
the bird feeder and cover the entire structure with netting.
Vertical gardening can help you make the most out of a limited garden
space!
