Living in Vermont, where even though we’ve had a very warm and sunny Fall (and it’s finally sweater weather and I am so happy!), it can get extremely bleak and gray during our long winter months. Winter often extends into June here, and it can feel like forever before we start to see any green. If you follow my blog, you’ll know that I am absolutely crazy about indoor gardening (and really any gardening at all since it’s definitely not my forte!). So I’ve become really obsessed with the idea of indoor gardening and small space gardening, and because I get really overwhelmed by a huge plot of land to fill up, I’m getting more interested in vertical gardening now as well.
I follow a lot of instagram accounts, and I’m always pinning and bookmarking beautiful small-space gardens, after living in big cities most of my life, I’m used to small spaces and maybe having a shared rooftop garden or having to just ogle a neighbor’s beautiful plantings and dream of having my own! So when I was introduced to these amazing composting vertical garden planters by Garden Tower Project, I was hooked! I just can’t see myself out there plowing up a whole field, even though we live on 10 acres now, I am so much more into beautiful succulents and cuttable flowers in easy to manage containers and plots. I love the idea of scattering small plants like eucalyptus, bamboo, fiddle leaf ferns and phlox just to brighten up a space (and plants are great for your indoor air quality as well!). Lettuce Grow has some super cute white milkglass planters that have a really nice farmhouse feel, but it’s not quite my vibe. And I’m never opposed to artificial either (since I’ve been known to kill plants now and again!) and I love the faux trailing succulents at West Elm too, but I really want to try to commit to actually growing live plants. I just feel like live plants (and yes I understand, there’s more leaves to pick off, you have to water them, etc.) are a little more work but to me the organic feel of thriving, bright greenery is worth it.
So I’m super excited to try out my new composting vertical garden planter. Vertical garden planters are great for small spaces like condos, balconies or city gardens, because the plants actually grow up rather than out. These planters come in terra cotta and sandstone so you can kind of pick your color scheme so it matches your outdoor living space. And if you don’t love either of these colors, keep in mind that dependent on what plants you choose, the plants will actually grow up and over the planter so it will be a beautiful cascade of greenery and you won’t even really see the pot.
While I love to cook and I’m a huge fan of herbs, I think I’m going to use my planter for purely decorative greenery, I’m thinking either trailing Philodendron or Pothos, I actually have a Pothos cutting just sitting in a plain glass vase on my windowsill, it’s nothing but just a cut branch in water and boy, does it grow! I now have gorgeous lush trailing leaves all across my windowsill which really brightens things up when I’m looking out at the cold and snow. And dependent on the plants that you choose (be sure to check the necessary light level on plants), I love this super modern vertical growing kit from Gardyn but it takes up a large space so you’d want to be sure you can place it close to a window if the plants need a lot of light, and this one would block the window because it’s so tall.
My Garden Tower planter is less than waist-high, and it’s super cool too because it rotates, so it’s easy to water and you can actually add different plant varieties and rotate it according to light and shade need if you’re so inclined. While I plan to use my planter for decorative plants, you can absolutely grow almost any herb, vegetable or flower. And it’s pretty lightweight, so you could also use it indoors in the winter, like I plan to do, and move it out to a deck or patio in the summer. And for those of you in small spaces, it offers 6 cubic feet of planting (think up, not out!).
If you’re not brave enough to try live gardening, here are some of my favorite artificial plant picks you you can add right away without waiting for anything to bloom or grow!
We still plan to spend lots of time indoors this winter, but I feel like it’s going to be a whole lot brighter since I’ll be using my awesome new vertical planter to bring the outdoors in here in Vermont! Do you have any great tips for indoor gardening? I would love to hear about them, I need all the help I can get!
(blog post partnership between Responsival and Little Blue Deer)
