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So you have a couple plants. Maybe a cactus or two. Perhaps you've even invested in the Instagram-famous Pilea peperomioides. All the plants in said plant collection seem to be doing pretty well, and now you're wondering, what's next? We have two words for you: Apartment. Gardening.

 

What, you may be wondering, is apartment gardening? It can mean one of two things:

1. For people who don't have access to an outdoor area in which to properly garden, it's about clustering plants together inside to create a lush, garden-esque atmosphere.
2. For others — like anyone with a fire escape, balcony, or yard area — it's growing plants, herbs, and even sometimes produce in a city atmosphere.

 

Basically, apartment gardening is about taking whatever slice of space you have and letting something grow there.

 

Still have questions? Need help deciding what to plant? Don't know whether window boxes are still a cool thing to have? To help you decide, we asked the experts, namely Amy Enfield, Ph.D., a consumer horticulturist with Scotts Miracle-Gro, and the members of Terrain's "Green Goods" team, to spill everything they know about small space gardening. Here's what they had to say. 

 

"Indoor plants are happy to move outdoors in the warm season, but outdoor space affords the opportunity to use annuals, perennials, and even shrubs. Annual container plantings (selected based on sun/shade conditions) will have a lot more colour range to them than indoor plants," suggests the Green Goods team. "Something as simple as a single boxwood or olive in clay is beautiful. Vines planted in containers on balconies or porches can be very rewarding, especially fast-growing vines, as they can easily cover a railing in a season and lend a big impact with a single planting."

 

They also note that so-called "patio vegetables" like lettuce and tomato can be grown on a balcony, provided it gets at least eight hours of sun. Enfield suggests, "Pansies, violas, snapdragons, spinach, leaf lettuce, and other cool-weather loving plants in the spring; plant warm-weather loving plants like petunias, roses, tomatoes, peppers, basil, rosemary, and tropical flowers in the summer; and mums, ornamental peppers, Swiss chard, spinach, kale, and other cool-weather plants in the fall."

 

Both note that when growing vegetables, it's important to seek out ones that will do well in containers (aka "container plants"). Your local plant store should be able to point you in the right direction.

 

We hope your adventures in apartment gardening will help beautify your space and live a little greener and better!

 

Special thanks for the story to: Refinery29