15 Vertical Garden Ideas To Make The Most Of A Small Space
Save space and create a modern and elegant corner of green beauty in your home with these ideas for vertical gardens!
What Is A Vertical Garden?
Anything that implies more plants somehow stacked on top of each other or growing sideways out of a wall is a vertical garden. It can be as big or as small as you want, and it fits almost anywhere.
Since 1938, when Stanley Hart White, a professor at the University of Illinois, established the concept and secured a patent for it, vertical gardens have existed. A French botanist by the name of Patrick Blanc created the current green wall forty years later, specifically using a hydroponic irrigation method. Today, green walls can be seen everywhere from workplaces and cafes to shopping malls and medical facilities.
Usually, these gardens house small plants and are generally found indoors. Outdoor vertical gardens take a much larger scale, often entire buildings become the garden bed, as seen in the image below.
Large, open spaces like malls and SPA centers sometimes use vertical gardens to keep the area visually tidy, while promoting an organized and minimalist look. In your home, on the other hand, a green wall or even a DIY garden or terrarium can turn a bleak room into a cozy, forest-like space. And while it contains many plants, a vertical garden does not take more space than a single pot!
Indoor Vertical Garden Ideas
Take a look at the interiors decorated with green and at the kinds of constructions available on the market to create a pillar of plants! While some of these are photographed outside, the finished product can find its place in a corner of the house. Fill them with your favorite flowering succulents or veggies and don’t forget to water them!
1. Over the Bed
The wall behind the bedroom is usually overlooked. Often, the only thing you find there is a lamp or a floating shelf. Use the space to spruce up your room and give it rustic air. Use flowers that have a soothing aroma that you like, or grow a few air-purifying plants to improve sleep quality.
2. Bathroom and Vertical Garden Combo
A few hanging plants count as a vertical garden too! Use the space above your bathtub to grow a few, and you might find you can even forget to water them! Pick low-maintenance tropical plants and overhanging succulents and they will get all the moisture they need from your daily showers!
3. Above the Mirror
If you don’t have a bathtub, you can still get creative with your bathroom space. Grow snake plants above your mirror, sink, or cabinets and you will be rewarded with a permanent patch of green that takes care of itself!
4. Dining Room Wall
Do you long for a picnic? For the smell of fresh earth and plants around you as you eat? With these large green walls, you don’t even have to leave the house for that! Enjoy nature from the full comfort of your own dining room. Grow leafy, spectacular greens, like peace lilies, spider plants, and other hard to kill plants for an impressive look!
5. Vertical Garden in the Living Room
Turn your living room into a green haven where you can relax and take a breath. The space in the picture is small, but with tall windows and two walls made out of moss, plus a two-sided vertical flower stand, it seems like an open corner of a forest. You can use low growing perennials to cover your walls. Asters do particularly well!
6. Kitchen Helper
In the image below you can see a vertical planter sprouting some fresh lettuce. Mix it with other veggies and spices to create an indoor vegetable garden. Plant aromatic herbs as well, like rosemary, thyme, and basil, so you can always have fresh leaves for your cooking.
7. Large Plants in a Vertical Garden
Even large indoor plants can thrive in a vertical setting if you pick them right. Choose leafy plants and ferns to go on the lower levels of a plant stand and plant a tree at the top level, to create layers. Alternatively, you can stick to just overhanging tropical plants.
8. Corner Planter
These planters are being prepared to move inside a well-lit corner of the house. The final orientation will dictate which plants go where. Sun-loving plants take one side, while fall-planted perennials that need less light take the other. This kind of planter makes a great addition to a small patio too, to bring some nature inside without crowding the space.
9. The Classic Stand
These stands are probably the most common type of vertical garden you will come across. Commercially available at house and garden stores, they are easy to use and often come with built-in seeds or plants. Generally, they contain small, colorful, and striking plants, but you can find ivy, ferns, and even polka dot plants!
DIY Vertical Garden Projects
If you are more of a fan of hands-on approaches and you would rather do it yourself, we have a few ideas for you! How do you make a vertical garden, I hear you ask? From very simple to quite complex projects, we collected something for everyone! Have a look and try your hand at them. We promise you complete and easy-to-follow instructions for each DIY garden! If you enjoyed our list of DIY plant stands, you will certainly love these ideas too.
10. Succulent Wall
We have a detailed guide on how to make a succulent wall already up, so check that out! Be sure to pick a sturdy wood and treat it to be waterproof, so it won’t start to fall apart or blacken. Mix and match flowering succulents, aloe, and other small types of succulents. Check out these useful guides on what succulents to choose!
- Take a look at flowering succulents for your centerpiece!
- Don’t forget about the aloe!
- Pepper in other kinds of succulents for some variety!
11. Shoe Holder
Take a look at this simple vertical garden made out of a shoe holder! To make this yourself you need a waterproof shoe organizer, your soil of choice, plants, and some strong hooks. Follow these easy steps and you will have this planter ready in no time!
- Measure where the hooks should attach to the wall and mark the spot with a pencil.
- Attach the hooks as instructed. I recommend drilling into the wall, rather than sticking them to the surface.
- Hang the shoe organizer.
- Fill each slot with soil, plant your flowers, and water.
12. Picture Perfect
To create this tiny garden, you will need a picture frame with detachable glass, some strong mesh, and a lidless wooden box.
- Fill the box with your favorite soil.
- Stick the mesh over the box.
- Attach the frame support to the back of the box.
- Plant your seeds or small seedlings.
- Remove the glass and stick the frame over the top of the box.
13. Cheat!
Use potted plants and a thin shelf to build this very easy vertical garden! All you have to do is line up your pots on the shelves and you’re done! Some plants may need splitting and repotting for this, so be sure to choose the right size pot so it will fit and leave enough room for the plant to breathe.
14. For the Pros
This is a large project, one that needs planning and time. The basic idea is to create cubes that can sit on your pots and stick them together to create this two-sided plant stand. It’s more complicated than that, though, because if you want to make it stable you will have to get creative with support. You can, however, create a simpler version of this, with just a few small cubes in which you plant some air plants!
15. A Library of Flowers
Convert an old bookshelf or drawer cabinet into a display of flowers! Follow the instructions below and plant the most beautiful flowering plants in the resulting planters. It will create an incredible effect as if the blooms are books waiting to be read!
- Remove the shelves or drawers and use the leftover frame to angle a piece of wood towards the back, as shown in the image.
- Paint everything with a waterproof stain.
- Fill in the recommended soil for each flower type.
- Plant your flowers, water, and enjoy!
How To Care For A Vertical Garden?
Every plant in your vertical garden needs a particular type of care, but there are some across-the-board tips and tricks that I can share with you.
- Expect spills
Every time you water a vertical garden, some might flow out. And since there are no plates to catch the surplus, it’s likely it will just overflow on your floor. Be ready and have rags nearby.
- Use fertilizer
Most plants need more soil than they can find in a green wall. So use a slow-release organic fertilizer with them, to feed them as much as they need to thrive.
- Water less often
Go for infrequent, deep watering, rather than just a little water every other day. Exceptions do exist, for example, bathroom plants, but generally, plenty of water every 10 days is better.
Final Thoughts
Go forth, green knight, and conquer the walls of green! I hope you enjoyed these vertical garden ideas and that you will put them into practice in a small space you want to spruce up. I can’t wait to hear all about it in the comments section below!
