Small-Space Container Gardens: Transform Your Balcony, Porch, or Patio With Fruits, Flowers, Foliage & Herbs - Softcover

Richardson, Fern

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1604692413 ISBN 13: 9781604692419

Publisher: Timber Pr, 2012

Synopsis

Small? Yes.

A concrete slab populated solely with plastic chairs and an abandoned grill? Not anymore. Chances are your balcony, porch, or patio could use a major makeover. Fern Richardson, charismatic creator of the Life on the Balcony blog, is here to walk you through the process of beautifying a small space--even when you have a similarly small budget.

This exciting guide layers practical gardening fundamentals with creative solutions that encourage thinking outside the pot. Maybe this means repurposing a shipping pallet to create a colorful vertical garden of nasturtiums and lobelia. Or simply seeing walls, rafters, railings, and everything in-between as fair game. It's in these containers--traditional or not--that you'll cultivate your own food, attract beneficial insects, grow flowering vine privacy screens, and so much more. You'll also learn how to tackle unique challenges, like windy conditions when gardening several stories above street level, and how to care for plants and troubleshoot with the best of them.

From design basics to essential plant picks, Small-Space Container Gardens proves you don't need a yard to have a garden. For anyone who wants more green in their life, it's time to get out there and start growing.

About this title

About the Author

Fern Richardson is the creator of the container gardening blog Life on the Balcony. She is also a master gardener, amateur photographer, and container garden designer.

From the Back Cover

Chances are your balcony, porch, or patio could use a major makeover. Fern Richardson, charismatic creator of the blog Life on the Balcony, is here to walk you through the process of beautifying a small space—even when your budget is just as small.

This exciting guide layers practical gardening fundamentals with creative solutions that encourage thinking outside the pot. Maybe this means repurposing a shipping pallet to create a colorful vertical garden of nasturtiums and lobelia. Or simply seeing walls, rafters, railings, and everything in between as fair game. You'll also learn how to tackle unique challenges, like windy conditions when gardening several stories above street level, and how to care for plants and troubleshoot with the best of them.

From design basics to essential plant picks, Small-Space Container Gardens proves you don't need a yard to have a garden. For anyone who wants more green in their life, it's time to get out there and start growing.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface
Container gardening on balconies, patios, porches, terraces, decks, rooftops, or even windowsills is a fun way for those of us without a “real” garden to still get our hands dirty. I find that gardening on my balcony satisfies my need to grow—herbs, peaches, nectarines, figs, blueberries, flowers, and succulents—while still leaving plenty of time and energy for other parts of my life. The space I’ve created, and the process of caring for it, is also my retreat. When my husband insists on practicing the same song on his guitar, over and over and over, I can easily escape to the relative peace and quiet of my balcony garden. Even though container gardens are inherently less wild than a traditional garden—they are, after all, contained—I love that it’s still possible to be surrounded with lushness, beauty, nature, privacy, and style.

Connected so intimately to our indoor living areas, balconies, patios, and porches also serve as a transitional space between inside and out that naturally invites personal touches and creativity. Many people love plants and keep on adding to their collection, but feel frustrated that their balcony or patio doesn’t reflect their unique style. That’s where having a design strategy comes into play. In the first part of the book you’ll learn how to make harmonious plant combinations and compositions, pick containers that are equally pleasing to plant and person, and utilize your space—on the floor, up the wall, over the railing—to its fullest potential. You’ll get ideas on redefining what makes a container a container, incorporating decorative touches, and, above all, unleashing your personality.

Throughout the book you’ll also find plenty of practical information that shows you how to deal with unique challenges, like the microclimate of a windy balcony or a patio that gets the brunt of every rain storm. The final two chapters give you a basic crash course in cultivating your container gardening green thumb, as well as troubleshooting some common balcony garden pests and diseases.

The five design chapters include multitudes of plant picks and tips to help you attract birds and beneficial insects to your garden, simultaneously satiate your hunger and your discerning eye, create a secret garden hidden away from nearby neighbors and noises, assemble a pathway of stunning succulents and fragrant plants, or luxuriate in a tropically themed refuge. I’ve included simplified design plans which you can use as inspirational blueprints or as jumping off points to mix and match plants from one chapter to another. No matter how you decide to use this book, I hope it motivates you to head outside and create your own oasis. You won’t regret it!
 

Edition details

• Publisher: Timber Pr
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1604692413
• ISBN 13: 9781604692419
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 186