If you love gardens but hate lower back pain or lack the space to grow a garden, this article is for you. Read on to learn everything you didn’t know about vertical gardens including ways you can use upcycled materials to build one. After reading this article, you’ll never view yard sales and flea markets the same again. Someone else’s discard can become the vertical garden of your dreams!
What is a Vertical Garden?
A typical garden is any garden planted within flower beds (raised or flat) or along fences and property lines. They lay horizontally across or over the ground. Vertical gardens are the opposite. They are a raised garden bed that requires a small amount of space and a little creativity to launch. Vertical gardens can be installed in your kitchen, or up against a fence in your backyard. They can be as simple as using an old piece of furniture or as luxurious as a pergola. When it comes to these gardens, the sky’s the limit with possibilities. Gardens aren’t just aesthetically pleasing. They have other benefits as well.
Read More: 9 House Plants You Won’t Kill
Health Benefits
Good House Keeping listed multiple health benefits from working in a garden such as lowered blood pressure, an increase in vitamin D which has been known to improve bone health, and stress relief. While the concept that spending time outdoors will help boost mental health isn’t new, over the last few years, more and more studies have shown that horticulture therapy has a valid place within the medical industry.
The National Center for Biotechnology (NCBI) discussed the benefits of horticulture therapy in a study published in 2012. Specifically, horticulture therapy was found to help with pain reduction as well as allowing patients to take lower doses of some psychiatric medications. It was also seen to improve the quality of life in elderly patients, reducing the likelihood of dementia and a delay in the need for moving into an assisted living facility.
DIY Vertical Gardens
Get started on your path to self-improvement by building your own vertical garden! There’s no wrong way to build or design a vertical garden. Unless it falls over. Then you have a problem. Check out some of these crazy and cool vertical garden ideas! After checking out some of these gardens, you’ll never shop at a flea market or yard sale the same way again!
The Dresser
Balcony Garden Web has a list of ways furniture can be converted into vertical gardens, including the dresser photographed above. Take an old dresser, give it a coat of fresh paint and then place pots with your favorite flowers inside of the drawers. You can see from the photo that the drawers are staggered out so that the plants inside are all visible.
Read More: 3 Garden Ideas from Repurposed Household Items
Tin Cans & Toilets
The Micro Gardener has a ton of ideas on their website for ways that everyday items from around the home can be used as planters. The photo on the left is a set of tin cans that have been painted and fastened to the outside of a fence.
In addition to tin cans, the Micro Gardener has a ton of other ideas on how to use upcycled goods for vertical gardens such as an old toilet. Toilest come highly recommended by the Micro Gardener because they already have built-in drainage and the porcelain exterior is durable.
Chairs
The DIY Network listed ways old chairs can be used as planters. They recommend that child or toddler-sized chairs be left as is and that potted plants be set on the seat. For adult-sized chairs, holes can be cut into the base of the chair, allowing the pots to be set into them so that only the plant is visible.
Homedit also a ton of ideas on how old chairs can be used. In some cases, the base of the chair is completely removed and a flower pot is balanced on the bottom rungs so that the flowers stick up through the base. Paint the frame of the chair a new color to enhance the beauty of the entire piece.
Rain Boots
Rosy Posy found a clever way to turn old rain boots into planters. Multiple 1/4 inch holes were drilled into the bottom of each boot to allow drainage. Additional holes were drilled into the back of each boot so it could be hung against a cup hook.
The Gardening Cook also has a ton of ideas on ways that shoes can be used as planters. They also caution that every shoe needs to have holes bored into the sole. In their case, they used screwdrivers and hammers. They also used gravel in the bottom of each shoe to enhance drainage and also to weigh the shoe down so the wind wouldn’t blow it over.
Read More: Garden Decorations and Outdoor Patio Must-Haves
This summer, enjoy time in your garden. Get some fresh air and soak up the vitamin D. There’s no need to stress out about lower back pain because, with these fantastic ideas, you won’t have any. Make your entire garden a beautiful conversation piece – something the neighbors will envy. Try out one of these ideas and let us know how it turned out!
WANT TO READ MORE?
Check out this article on ECO-FRIENDLY AND UNIQUE WAYS TO GARDEN.
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Photo Credits: Unsplash.com| Pixabay.com| Balcony Garden Web | Micro Gardener | DIY Network | Rosy Posy
Sources: Good House Keeping | National Center for Biotechnology | Professional Gardening Services | The Spruce | Balcony Garden Web | Micro Gardener | DIY Network | Homedit | Rosy Posy | Gardening Cook
