15 Apartment Balcony Gardening Ideas That Make Small Spaces Work
Twelve practical apartment balcony ideas: vertical planters, railing boxes, privacy screens, lights, a kitchen herb corner and more.
Outdoor
Check out all our blog posts on Outdoor gardening.
Best Plants to Grow on a Balcony, Sorted by How Much Sun You Get
The best balcony plants for full sun, part sun, shade and windy high floors, from cherry tomatoes and herbs to ferns and begonias.
How to Make a Balcony Garden (A Simple Setup Guide)
Start a balcony garden the right way: check the rules, count your sun, pick the right pots and soil, and make watering easy.
How to Take Care of a Lotus Plant at Home: A Simple US Care Guide
Grow a healthy, blooming lotus at home: the right container, soil, sun, water depth, feeding and winter care for your USDA zone, in simple steps.
Green Roof Gardening: A Practical Backyard Guide
The first green roof I ever built was on my potting shed, and I killed every single plant on it in about seven weeks. I dumped four inches of regular garden soil up there, pressed in a flat of sedum, and walked away feeling clever. By late July the soil had baked into a brick, … Read more >>
How to Plant Squash in a Raised Bed for Big Yields
My first raised bed squash planting was a disaster, and I still laugh about it. I dropped six zucchini seeds into a 4×8 bed in mid-May, figuring more plants meant more squash. By July, that bed looked like a green tidal wave. Leaves the size of dinner plates blocked every path, powdery mildew crept in … Read more >>
How to Fix Leggy Dieffenbachia: A Simple Guide
My first Dieffenbachia came from a grocery store clearance rack in Ohio, marked down to $4 because it looked rough. I nursed it back, and for two years it was gorgeous — wide, creamy-splashed leaves stacked close together. Then I moved it to a corner by the stairs where it “looked nice,” and forgot about it. Eighteen … Read more >>
Why Basil Plant Leaves Turn Brown (And How to Fix It)
Last July I walked out to my patio at 7 a.m. with coffee in hand and found my best Genovese basil looking like someone had held a lighter to it. The bottom leaves had brown, papery edges. Two of the middle leaves had dark, water-soaked blotches. And the whole plant had that slumped, tired look that tells … Read more >>
Gardening Zone New York: A Grower’s Zone Guide
My first spring in upstate New York, I killed a whole flat of tomato seedlings in one night. It was May 12th, the sun had been out for a week, and the garden center had been selling tomatoes since the first of the month. I planted 18 of them, went to bed happy, and woke … Read more >>
17 Vertical Garden Ideas That Actually Work
My first vertical garden was a disaster, and I still keep the photo on my phone as a reminder. I nailed a wooden pallet to the fence on the south side of my Zone 6 backyard, stuffed it with strawberries and lettuce, and stood back feeling pretty clever. Two weeks later the top row was crispy brown, the … Read more >>