How to Grow a Vertical Garden
If you find yourself with very limited space, but a burning desire to grow a garden, think vertically. In an area as small as 2 feet wide, you can build a garden that provides food to satisfy your taste buds and flowers to nurture your spirit. Get creative with your vertical support materials and the intensive garden space can serve as an outdoor work of art, too. Does this Spark an idea?
Other People Are Reading
Things You'll Need
- Compost
- Bamboo poles
- Wood posts
- Heavy-weight string
- Garden seeds
- Vegetable plants
- Flower plants
- Herb plants
- Insecticidal soap
- Hanging planters
Instructions
-
-
1
Prepare the soil. Work plenty of compost into the dirt to provide growing plants the nutrients they need to climb vertically, produce healthy foliage and yield plump vegetables, fruit or flowers. If you are creating a vertical garden on a deck or patio instead of in the ground, make sure the containers have drainage holes so that the soil does not become soggy or waterlogged.
-
2
Build a framework to support the plants in your vertical garden. The arrangement may be as simple as a series of tripods made of bamboo poles tied at the top for morning glory vines to climb. A more elaborate construction with wooden posts at both ends of the vertical garden, joined by a cross bar at the top, allows you to run string up and down for vines to climb and a high, horizontal attachment point for hanging baskets.
-
-
3
Select plants that are natural climbers, such as beans and peas, or that can be trained to grow up a trellis or homemade support structure, such as small squash or cucumbers. For a more permanent vertical garden, plant perennial vines such as clematis, tall ornamental grasses or a row of columnar fruit trees.
-
4
Water and fertilize your vertical garden frequently, particularly if the plants are growing in containers or planter boxes that dry out quickly. Help young plants grow upward by manually guiding vines and stems to wrap around the vertical supports. Check routinely for insects and pests, picking them off by hand or spraying with an organic insecticidal soap if there is a major infestation.
-
5
Extend your vertical garden by growing plants in pots suspended from the porch roof, hanging plant stands or cross-bars you've built into the garden's support structure. Planters specifically designed to grow tomatoes upside down may also be used for peppers and small cucumber plants. If there is sufficient space at the base of your vertical garden, tuck in pots filled with herbs and colorful annual flowers to attract bees that will help pollinate the garden.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
If you have a patio or deck railing to use for the vertical garden's basic framework, increase its height by attaching rectangular lattice trellises across the top with sturdy clamps or screws.
References
- Photo Credit Dynamic Graphics Group/Dynamic Graphics Group/Getty Images
