Vertical Pipe Garden Solutions

Is a Vertical Garden the Solution?

I grew up on about a quarter acre plot of land in Johannesburg, South Africa. Not so much land, especially by African standards, but much more than my 2x3m cube. This might sound obvious, but in a "soil garden" you plant things in the ground and they grow up. As a result I tend to think of the garden as starting on the ground and going up. But this conventional mentality is not cutting the mustard in my unconventional balcony garden. 

I can't really attach anything to the fence as it's a rented apartment (no holes in the wall!) so I have historically clung to putting plants in pots on the ground and tried to train them around the fencing. This looks clustered and uneven - I would prefer to space my plants out more. I need to think more vertically and top to bottom so I looked up some ideas to see if I could incorporate them into my plan:

Old gutter pipes should be cheap and might look like a feature if I spray-paint them different colours.

Individual pots would make it easy to change out failed plants. Also, it is essentially a giant drain - perfect for drainage.

The sloping design of this planter would probably be great for drainage. But this looks like it will take a while to look natural instead of a giant pipe construction. I wonder if that depends on planting - maybe more trailing plants would hide the structure better.

This suspended pipe garden is so cute I want it immediately. I'm a little worried it might not withstand the wind in Dublin... But faint never won fair garden!

These hanging bottles are by far my favourite idea, but again, wind would probably devastate them. I think I will make one anyway just to see what it looks like anyway. There will be a video, get excited! #timelapse

Welcome To My Tiny Balcony Garden Project

Let me introduce you to my pride and joy. This is my tiny balcony garden:

As you can see it is teeny tiny and suffers badly from rain. This year I am aspiring to transform this humble patio from a waterlogged plant graveyard to a bohemian retreat.

Size 

The balcony measures 2m deep by 3m across with a 2m wooden fence around it. It is north facing :( and to add to the challenges there is a 2m thick hedge on the eastern edge, meaning the entire area gets very little sun. The most sunlight is early in the morning on the left side of the balcony.

Water

Why all the umbrellas you ask? Well, apart from the fact that I live in the eternally precipitous country of Ireland, my upstairs neighbours' balcony is about half a meter shorter than my garden. this means the front edge and the right edge are not covered and also get all the run off from the 5 stories above me. Over the past year I have resorted to umbrellas as a means to protect my poor plants from water logging, to very little avail (but hey, at least they add colour when the flowers all die!) 

When you add these two factors together the result is a relatively dry and sunny bottom left corner, so I am going to try and capitalise on this. Unfortunately my neighbours are on the left and they seem to think I want their bins up against my fence :/ Since this is a rental apartment, there are certain limitations to what I can and can not change. MOAR CHALLENGES!

Wish List for the Finished Space
- 2-person daybed for the bf and me to sit out in and have coffee
- a variety of plants that thrive rather than die with all the water
- storage for our bin and christmas decorations
- privacy
- a usable outdoor space sans umbrellas

I started this blog because I can't find other blogs about how to deal with such a user-unfriendly scenario, but I know that most of my neighbours and many of my friends have similar situations so I thought it might be useful for people to see what can be achieved with a little creativity. And the final handicap to this project is that I would like to spend as little money as possible. Let the challenge commence!