Urban home gardening


If you are suffering from not having a garden space or backyard. No problem. There is a special gardening technique for you. "Urban Gardening".

If you have a small balcony or an apartment side, you can start gardening.


Urban home gardening

Urban garden adapts to a small or specific space. No matter whether it is a rooftop, small patch of ground, slab of concrete, or a south-facing window. Window boxes are a great option for creating a green extension of your apartment that doesn't take up any of your living space. Here plants can be grown on the roof too.

Varieties of urban home garden


  1. Container gardening.
    • This is the most popular urban gardening method.
    • Common among people with small patios, yards, or balconies.
    • Can use a variety of containers for container gardening such as buckets, old tires, raised beds, window-boxes, barrels, shoes, and watering cans, bottles, etc
    • This can be used for growing all types of plants for foods or decorations. (But plant selection should be done carefully)
  2. Indoor gardening.
    • If you have no patios, yards, or balconies are available, you can practice indoor gardening as an active urban gardening method.
    • Plants can be grown in containers like in container gardening and place in the indoor.
  3. Green roofs (Rooftop gardening).
    • Roofs designed with a growing medium to cultivate plants.
    • It can be used to grow food, trees, and many other types of plants.
  4. Community gardening.
    • This method is used in outdoor public or private spaces.
    • For this, you need to find a permitted place.
    • Cultivate gardens for food or desire as a group.
    • It is an excellent option for those with no yard or outdoor space..
    • This will help to get to know other people and work with them.
  5. Guerilla gardening.
    • Guerilla gardening is a way of adding plants to public spaces that don't technically belong to the gardener.
    • Cultivations are established in places such as median, beside a highway, or little strips of dirt.

Some tips to make your urban garden success


  1. Grow your plants in containers.
    • Better to use portable containers for this purpose.
    • Then you can move them here and there to expose into the sunlight.
    • If your plants seem to dry out in one window area, you can try different areas to adjust to what works best.
    • Plastic plant pots and hanging containers are ideal
  2. Make your urban garden vertical.
    • Can use verticle helpers on the wall
    • Normally vining plants take more space to grow(for example Cucumber).
    • So by making their growth vertical, the space need can be minimized.
  3. Plant Selection for an urban garden.
    • When planning your garden think about what to plant.
    • You can select fruits, Vegetables, Herb, and flowers that are easily grown in urban space.
    • You have to think about how to use your space efficiently.
    • For making your space for optimum usage, you have to understand that not every plant that you want to grow, will be able to thrive in the environment that you have created, and serious plant selection is essential to make an herb garden.
    • Pick the plants that will do the best for the area you can provide for them.
  4. Give your plants some space.
    • Although growing plants require care and affection, luckily they only require three basic requirements. Light, soil, and water.
    • The plants do not even need to be planted in the ground. Most grow perfectly in containers.
  5. Don't overwater your plants.
    • Overwatering is maybe the No. one killer of the plants in containers.
    • But, you may need to increase or decrease watering your plants depending on the weather of the environment (environment can be windy, rainy, cold, hot, etc).
    • Make sure that your chosen pot has drainage holes, so the excess water can escape
  6. Sunlight.
    • Sunlight is crucial for the growth of a plant.
    • Make sure that you find a place where the plant has access to at least 6 to 8 hours of sunlight a day.

Environmental, social, and health benefits of urban gardening


  • Provides nutrition need by food
  • Brings families together
  • Educates urban children about agriculture and make them aware of agriculture
  • Makes the cities green
  • Relieving stress
  • Helps filter air and can get the maximum use of rainwater, if you use rainwater for watering purposes
  • Creates leisure more effective and productive


Written by: Isuri Gunarathne View Isuri Gunarathna's profile on LinkedIn