With more of us working and staying at home, it’s an ideal opportunity to bring more of the outdoors in. Plants have proven benefits for our mental health and wellbeing, from lowering our anxiety and stress levels to increasing productivity, boosting our mood, and improving our mindfulness. Here at Urban Eden, we believe that you don’t need a lot of space in order to bring more green into your home. A vertical garden is ideal if you want to bring a touch of nature into your home in a functional and stylish way, without requiring too much space or maintenance. If you’ve never grown greens, it can seem hard to know where to start — which is why we’re here to help. In this post, we’ll take a look at what vertical gardens are, how to bring them into your home, and 5 inspiring spaces that effortlessly combine design and green.
What is a Vertical Garden?
Vertical gardens use stacked structures to grow plants and flowers upwards instead of outwards. You might have seen these gardens in all sorts of urban settings, such as the green wall of your local cafe or a vertical hanging garden on the side of a building. However, this nature-filled concept isn’t just reserved for towering skyscrapers. Vertical gardens are the perfect solution if you’re looking to create your own miniature herb garden in the kitchen, or want to bring more plants onto your home or balcony.
Vertical gardens can be created in a number of ways, from stacking planters on a vertical planter box like the ones we offer at Urban Eden to hanging pots from a beam, planting seedlings against a wall, or layering shelves on top of each other against the wall.
How to Style Vertical Gardens in your home
One of the things we absolutely love about vertical gardens is that they make your space look good, and feel good. These ingenious structures are ideal if you’re tight on space in the home, and are versatile enough to work in any space. Plus, they allow you to benefit from the therapeutic properties of having nature in your home, without needing to maintain all sorts of different plants in different pots.
If you’re looking to bring vertical gardens into your home, here are our favourite styling tips to help you pull off the look flawlessly in your home.
Keep it simple to start
You might want to create an entire living wall in your home or fill your balcony with shelves of vertical gardens. However, if you’ve never had a vertical garden before, the trick is to start slow and steady with a single garden, then add to it from there.
Starting out with a simple structure will allow you to get used to putting a vertical garden together and caring for it. Urban Eden’s Vertical Garden is made up of six vertical garden pots with four pods, which can be connected vertically and horizontally. We might be biased, but we believe it’s the easiest way to venture into vertical gardens: they’re flexible and easy to care for, and the structure gives your plants constant access to water while making it impossible to overwater your greens.
Once you’ve got the hang of caring for one vertical garden, you can begin experimenting with different plants, locations in the home, and even different structures.
Match the colour with your home
Green is the primary colour of any indoor vertical garden, but that doesn’t mean you can’t mix and match the colours to suit your space. The design and structure of your planters play a big role in making your garden look at home in your home.
Opt for a clean and minimalist design that doesn’t draw too much focus away from the star of the show: the plants themselves. If you’re working with a petite floor plan, white planters will help open the room up and invigorate the space. On the other hand, if your home has plenty of darker materials, a black frame will work well in the space.
It’s also beneficial to use complementary materials whenever possible: for example, white planters go hand-in-hand with timber and linens, while darker planters are ideal for homes with an abundance of metal and stone.
It's not just for the kitchen
Most of us associate a vertical wall planter with a herb garden in the kitchen. While these planters are at home in any kitchen space, they’re equally suited to any other room in the house.
Take the living room. You could add a vertical garden next to an entertainment unit to the area more vibrant, or create a cosy reading nook with an armchair, a side table, and a beautiful vertical garden.
Another place where vertical gardens thrive is in the bathroom. Most bathrooms have a fairly muted palette of whites, greys and creams, which means they’re longing for a splash of colour. A vertical garden next to the bathtub or the towel rack can add some much-needed greenery to the space.
If you have a balcony in your apartment or house, this is also a prime location for a vertical garden. These planters are the ideal accompaniment on the wall next to some oversized pots, or right next to your outdoor entertaining area.
Get creative with it!
Vertical planters are popular amongst gardeners with a green thumb because they’re the easiest way to grow herbs and veggies with a limited amount of space. But that’s just one way to use vertical gardens in your home. These structures are the perfect way to introduce different plants and flowers into your home in an elegant and creative way.
Let your imagination run wild with your vertical garden. You might choose to stack two vertical gardens next to one another and plant each row with different coloured flowers, or create miniature display signs for all of your herbs and vegetables.
5 inspiring spaces with vertical gardens
Three Birds Renovations: House 12 Bathroom
The team at Three Birds Renovations are known for their creativity and ingenuity when it comes to home renovations, so it’s no surprise they’ve styled a chic bathroom with just the right amount of nature. Three Birds used three vertical gardens to create a vibrant splash of nature to complement the stunning, neutral tones of the main bathroom in House 12.
Geneva Vanderzeil’s Herb Garden
Style maker and DIY enthusiast Geneva Vanderzeil is no stranger to combining style and functionality in her home. Geneva’s herb garden is tucked away in a sunny corner of her deck, and only took an afternoon to put together. Read more about her story here.
“They’re great because they have a relatively large amount of planting space for such a small structure, are easy to put together and have a self-watering system that reduces how often you need to water.”
Herbs on hand in the kitchen
One of the best ways to use a vertical planter is for a herb and vegetable garden in the kitchen. This space-saving black vertical garden is neatly tucked away for easy access to greens for dinner, yet just bright enough to bring a dash of nature into the space.
The perfect green living room
We love this cosy reading nook with just the right hint of green. The vertical gardens bring vibrancy into an otherwise industrial room, whilst complementing the timber and concrete hues.
An ideal balcony garden
Vertical gardens are the perfect accompaniment to any apartment balcony, which is exactly what Urban Eden customer Shamus did with his. The planters are perfect for growing his plants at home, and bring a nice pop of colour to his white balcony.
“I was looking for a vertical garden for some time and decided to get this one. I was surprised how easy it was to assemble and for someone who isn't a green thumb growing herbs. So far the garden is going insanely well, my plants are thriving. I have a good stock of basil, sage, thyme, chillies, rocket and lettuces growing like crazy...It's great to see my garden thriving. I am glad I purchased it.”
Ready to buy a vertical garden for your home? Shop Urban Eden’s range today.
