Many pots with plants on the outside wall of the house for decoration.

Time to Grow Up!

by Laura Storey

ADVENTURES IN VERTICAL GARDENING

Add beauty to your walls with vertical gardening. Bare walls and fences can be transformed with plants – add privacy to a balcony, expand your house plant collection or convert an unused yard into a tropical paradise by growing up instead of across.

The mainstay décor of tech start-ups and fancy city centre apartments, now vertical gardening is increasingly spreading its seeds into our homes and gardens. Perfect if you’re short on space – vertical gardening simply involves not growing your plants in beds but growing your plants upwards.

If you’re lucky enough to have a garden or even a ‘yarden’, a simple trellis is enough to get a good vertical garden going and these can be purchased relatively cheaply. Honeysuckle and wisteria make for stunning, fragrant additions.

Get creative and recycle – look out for pallets, old step ladders and worn out wellies!

Look out for flowerpots designed to hang from structures such as trellises, just make sure your trellis is strong enough to handle the weight. Get creative and recycle – look out for pallets, old step ladders and worn out wellies to add quirkiness to your little garden of Eden.

Empty tin cans are also a brilliantly sustainable and cost-effective option and can produce a bohemian look in your garden, especially if you take the time to paint them first. Ensure you put holes in the bottom of the cans for drainage, then add compost, smaller flowers and herbs.

So, if you’re short on space, or just want your walls to make a statement, it’s time to grow up.

ColneLife Spring 2022