Gardening on a Balcony

If you live in a city and have an apartment or townhouse, you usually do not have access to a yard and most gardening will not be available to you. Just because you do not have a yard does not mean that you are forced to live without gardening. If you are lucky enough to have rooftop access, you can use that to grow a garden. You can also grow plants indoors. One more option that you have is to grow a garden on your balcony. Since many people have balconies, this is a good option for most people.

Balcony gardening is not quite the same as growing outdoors, even if you are used to using planters outside. The main difference is that you are usually limited in weight to do safety reasons. Make sure you get lightweight planters for everything you grow. A popular option is to use wooden planters, since they are both decorative and lightweight, but you can also use other options.

Another thing that you should be careful about while growing on balconies is the amount of light your plants will receive. Depending on the location of your balcony, you could get anywhere from plenty of sun to almost no sun at all. Make sure you study this at get plants that will grow in the amount of light that you receive.

Other concerns that you should take into account is the amount of water your plants will receive and the nutrients they need. Balcony gardens will probably be more susceptible to the elements, and will probably need to be fertilized regularly. Water is also a concern if your balcony gets too hot. If the balcony is hotter than the general climate, your will probably want to install an automatic watering system, with watering as often as twice a day in the summer.

Have fun with your garden. Just because you are confined to a small space does not mean you cannot experiment. Try different flowers and plants and see what grows. Even if something goes wrong one season, you always have next year to try something new.