It's easy to quench your thirst for greenery when you've got a big back yard of your own, but what about apartment-dwellers or folks with just a small porch to work with? Never fear! There are lots of fun ways to add some plant life, even in smaller spaces.
1. Container Water Garden
Over at Apartment Therapy, you can learn how to create your own container water garden. You can scale this project up or down, depending on the space you have at hand. It also seems like a fun project to do with kids.
When I saw this tutorial, I had a couple of concerns: that can take a lot of water and standing water isn't the greatest idea, especially during mosquito season.
It does take quite a bit of water to establish a larger container pond, but you can say the same for many new plantings. Once the pond gets going, you shouldn't need to top it off too terribly often.
As far as the mosquito question, one of the comments over at Apartment Therapy hit it right on the head: fish! Commenter tasterspoon recommended adding a few goldfish to take care of mosquito larvae.
2. Potted Succulent Garden
Succulents are such amazing plants. They're beautiful, they take very little water and work to maintain, and they work well indoors or out. Over at Gardener's Supply Company, they tell you how to start a potted succulent garden of your own.
The best part about this lovely little garden, aside from how easy it is to care for, is that succulents don't require fertilizers to thrive!
3. Plant Upside-Down
By now, I'm sure most of you have run across the "As Seen On TV" upside down tomato planter. You can hang these handy planters by a window inside or on a balcony or patio to grow lots of food in a small space.
It's actually quite easy to build your own upside down planter, and you don't have to limit yourself to tomatoes! Try planting upside down squash, strawberries, or green peppers. I've even see folks experiment with planting herbs upside down.
Do any of you guys have small spaces where you've managed to fit in some greenery? We'd love to hear about it in the comments!
Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by elainevdw
Follow Becky Striepe on Twitter: 
Great article. Though I don’t have “small” spaces, the space I do have is weedy and hard to manage. The soil isn’t good, and it’s hard on the back as well.
I have taken advantage of a small deck, and had red onions, green onions, and tomatoes in containers. The great thing about containers, is that they can be moved to sunnier locations when necessary, or taken out of the rain when they’ve had too much. Being able to move them around is a huge plus.
I also tried the upside-down method with cherry tomatoes, and it has worked beautifully. Once the plants took root, this method produced
daily. Certainly I think it can work for any variety of plants.
My recommendation? Hang your upside-down (I did use the “seen on tv”) planter first. I found it awfully heavy to lift and hang, once full of soil. There is also the little flat part on top, that afterwards, I was able to place a small tray of birdseed on as well for the small birds.
Thanks for the tips, Jane! You’re so right about containers – they’re great for folks with yards that are tough to cultivate, too!
I love this post – my kids will love this post – we are always looking for little garden projects, especially ones that fit on a windowsill – all in the name of science!!!
We have a tiny garden but my kids have been hunkering after a vegetable patch, so last summer we made a keyhole garden… and we ate salad from it all summer!!!
http://www.se7en.org.za/2009/08/02/saturday-spot-our-keyhole-garden-begins
We are just headed into spring (we live in Cape Town) and big plans are afoot for a garden upgrade!!!
I like Tree , Good Job !
I very like your picture those are very small tree.. right now I have some idea for create a business from you post .. Thank you so much ^_^
thank you, good idea
Hi, your web-blog is realy interesting.. I think I`m coming back to read interesting blogposts