Where can you place your garden?

In urban areas, many people don’t have much space to keep a garden, and have to get creative if they want to green their neighborhood. If you feel like this applies to you and are concerned about not having enough space, don’t worry too much–it is easy to think of solutions! You can have beautiful plants on your windowsills, balconies, rooftop gardens, hanging baskets, vines growing up the sides of buildings, rock and box gardens on the streets or next to your door, and more. There are so many ways to have green spaces around you! Just use some imagination and find a few pots to start your urban oasis.

If you prefer planting vegetables and flowers with friends and neighbors, you can also participate in a community garden close to your home. Explore some community garden ideas, find contacts, and locate a community garden near you! An excellent source of this type of information is the American Community Gardening Association.

Planting in containers

Planting in containers allows you to use good quality soil and control wind, sunlight, and water conditions. You don’t need to go to the store to buy expensive plant pots, just make sure the containers you use have the proper drainage. Line the bottom of the container with gravel. If you’d like to use a container that doesn’t have holes in it for drainage, place another container with holes inside it. Just to get you started, here are some fun ideas to create your container garden: you can use old bathtubs, buckets, barrels, unwanted kitchen bowls, pots and pans, old toilets, children’s wagons, old grills, wheelbarrows, old pottery… Anything that can hold soil will work great!