Balcony Gardening

Jo14

Hi. I'm a final year product design student, currently undertaking my final design project about balcony gardening. My particular focus is for for those who are older and may have had to downsize (leaving behind a much beloved garden) to a smaller property or apartment with limited room/ balcony to garden in. I am looking at designing some kind of gardening set that would help to enable the user to make the most of this space. The inspiration for this project is my Grandma who loves gardening but who now doesn't feel able to and so gets somebody else to tend with it, meaning she loses out to some extent on the joy of gardening. If anybody has any thoughts and ideas on this I'd be really greatful!  

Thanks!

Ceres

I suppose balcony gardening is no different from any other type of gardening except for the space available. For some it would be a place to grow vegetables and herbs and for others, flowers would be the dominant feature. There are many inspirational images online showing all the different ways that people garden in a restricted space.

For people who find gardening difficult due to age or restricted mobility, it might be an idea to design something that needs minimal maintenance.....perennials and small shrubs that don't need trimming on a regular basis and that look good all year. Grasses are great for movement and sound, evergreens and coloured leaved plants to avoid the gaps of winter. Plants such as rosemary keep their leaves all year and smell good, plus you can use them in cooking so that ticks three boxes. Small conifers for a mini-forest look.

These can all be grown in large pots or troughs. On a balcony weight is a factor so the plants would have to be grown in a multi fibre compost, preferably peat free.

pansyface

depends on which floor your balcony is? I remember that there was a lot more wind at third floor level than at ground level.

Gardenmaiden

Also depends if your balcony is made up of just bars or glass panels. I grew sweet peas in pots which then went up some plastic netting secured in front of a non-opening window. Also in pots Nemophila baby blue eyes and penny black. Also pelagoniums did well, 5+ years out of them.

GemmaJF

Balcony Garden Web wrote (see)

Visit here balconygardenweb.com

The formatting of that site is dreadful in Chrome. Might I suggest a little more time on the web development and little less time bombing forums trying to promote it.