Little Red Balcony is our green oasis in this concrete jungle. A café like space that we created for us.

We go by @littleredbalcony #littleredbalcony on Instagram.

When we think of gardens our mind normally conjures up images of huge sprawling lawns, trees lined up, flower beds, etc. We can achieve a sense of satisfaction with a much scaled down version in whatever space we have. We need to bear in mind a plant needs the basics, sunlight, water, and a medium to grow. I have been into gardening since childhood. Even at work, I make sure to walk at our landscaped gardens and be among plants. So when we bought this house 6 years back we decided our balcony adjoining the bedroom will be dedicated to plants. We were so excited to begin that we got our balcony chairs even before moving in. In fact we selected this specific house as it brings in ample morning sunlight. We had plants on pots and planters all around the balcony and was quite cluttered, that’s when we thought of going vertical. We created a café like an ambiance, so we have space to sit down and relax. Décor and functional use of space is considered.  We wanted to show off our collection of planters too.

 

 

Going vertical  -

• Helped up to gain more floor space to sit down and relax.
• Could manage to keep more plants in less space – space utilization was functional and practical.
• An organized way to keeping the plants, grouping them as per sunlight and water requirements
• Aesthetically appealing

To make use of the vertical space, we went in for floating shelves. We added another unit for the small sized planters and plants. This was made of reclaimed wood.

We painted it ourselves and set it up during the pandemic. The pots and planters are mostly in earthenware, ceramics, terracotta.

We buy our planters as holiday memorabilia or pick it up from roadside vendors, malls, and even online. If we have a situation that the plant dies and we cannot replace it immediately we at least have beautiful ceramics to look at. Given the pandemic and being full time working professionals, our nursery visits are adhoc.

The plants we have here are easy to grow, cactus, succulents, pothos, syngoniums, sansevieria, jade, etc.

Being the east facing balcony we get the early morning sun. its such a sight to see the plants bathed in sunlight while we sip our morning coffee.

Do not let space be a constraint in starting a home garden.  Let’s see some easy ideas, that newbie plant enthusiasts can try:

1. Water garden on a window sill or table: If you have a table, place it near a window add some bottles of water and grow some Potos (Money plant). Change the water once a week.

• If you are afraid the water garden could attract mosquitoes, fishes come to your rescue. If you have a bigger setup, add fishes like guppies or beta fighter fish that can grow without oxygen pumps. You can make an aquascape or just a water garden. The Fishes are added so they can eat up the mosquito larvae and provide nutrition to the plants. Plants provide oxygen to the fishes. A nice bio-cycle. You get plants and a pet as a bonus. That too in a small space. The pet shop will have a lot of aquatic plants that you can try.
• Water propagation – ZZ plant, Snake plant, Arrowhead, pothos, coleus, etc .. a huge list of plants can be water propagated. Ask your gardening friends to share and make a colorful setup in water. Less space more fun.

 

 

2. Herbs, Shallots, Garlic: Start a small kitchen garden.  Here is an easy one – to grow spring onions – You can use a shallow pot. The plastic containers you get when you order food are also ideal for this. Make some small holes at the bottom. Add garden soil, if you can get cocopeat mix it together and add. Take some small onions and place the root part to the soil and bury it. Mist it daily with water. Hang or place it by your kitchen window that gets some sunlight.  In about a week you can find small green shoots growing. In a jiffy, you have your spring onions ready for your salad. To speed up the process you can soak the onions in water overnight and then bury them.

 

Start small and you get going. Once you catch the gardening bug, it is contagious and it will lead you to something more!

Stay tuned for more ‘gardening in small spaces ideas from me. We will look at how to make a fairy garden in the next blog.

Do check out and engage on my Instagram handle @littleredbalcony and visit #litteredbalcony for gardening ideas.

 

#littleredbalcony #gardeninginsmallspaces #smallspacegardening #verticalgarden #waterpropogation #acquscaping #springonion #shallots #onion #growyourownfood #balcony #balconydesign #balconygarden #chennai #india #plantenthusiast #newbiegardener #urbangarden #newgardener 

 

Regards,

Sudha