Best Balcony Plants for your Garden Oasis

Best Balcony Plants For Your Garden Oasis:

Balconies are a great opportunity to let your creativity blossom. A little prep will go a long way in selecting the best balcony plants for your garden oasis. From flowers, herbs, and vegetables, to fruits trees, balconies offer plenty of gardening potential.

Best balcony plants in planters.
No two balconies are exactly alike so get to know your space before running out to the garden store. Spend a day making notes about where the light hits, how long it stays, and any periods of shade. Note the direction that your balcony faces. These observations will help you pick the best balcony plants and planters that will work best for you.

Vegetables & Herbs

A proper amount of sunlight is essential for plants to thrive. Tomatoes and peppers are sun lovers so you’ll need to raise them above the railing to ensure they get enough light. This can easily be accomplished with an elevated garden or a vertical garden planter. Lettuce, spinach, and kale can handle more shade and are best grown below.

Herbs are very adaptable and are generally considered best balcony plants. Consider growing anti inflammatory herbs for great health benefits. Having fresh herbs at your fingertips will also add a lot of flavor to your meals. Your foodie friends will admire you for it.

Flowers

There is an endless variety of flowers for use on balconies. Aromatic flowers like lavender can be chosen for their scent. Echinacea can be used to attract beneficial bugs. Be sure to consider sunlight in your selection to ensure bountiful blooms. There is also a variety of edible flowers you can choose from.

Fruit

Most fruit plants require 6-7 hours of sunlight per day. If your balcony can meet these needs, you’ll be rewarded with a delicious harvest each year. Focus on small dwarf varieties of fruit trees and bushes. Strawberries can be grown in space saving hanging planters. Blueberry bushes also look great growing in large container gardens.

Wildlife

Fruits and vegetables must be pollinated to produce. Companion planting them with flowers like Black-eyed Susan helps to get pollinators, like bees and butterflies, to notice your fifth story balcony garden. Alternatively you can pollinate your plants yourself using a q-tip but I would not recommend it.

Shade

A sunny balcony can get really hot in the summer. Shade producing plants can help keep the area cool and improve growing conditions of other plants. Tall flowering plants like hollyhocks and bamboo offer lots of shade. Trellised vines or vegetables such as peas and beans can diffuse the sunlight.

Privacy

Some balconies can feel exposed. Effective use of plants can create privacy. Plants that vine upwards like ivy, honeysuckle and climbing hydrangea can be trellised to provide a divider. Sunflowers are perfect on a sunny balcony. They can grow over five feet high to provide a cheerful fence line. Consider using a mobile container garden to create a moving divider for added privacy.

Best Balcony Plants and Planters

Selecting best balcony plants for your balcony is essential. Using proper planters is equally important. I developed Garden365 Container Gardens to meet specific needs of urban gardeners and plants alike. Choosing a combination of elevated, mobile, and vertical planters will help to ensure everyone’s needs are met.

When it comes to balcony gardens a little creativity, forethought, and experimentation can yield beautiful results! Selection of best balcony plants can be a fun and rewarding experience so go out there and have a blast. A beautiful balcony garden is a wonderful place to unwind. Don’t be surprised when it becomes your favorite “room”. Please let me know how it works out or share your ideas with other gardeners.

Written by: Tom Korzen
Garden365 | Founder