How to create a vertical garden

As long as you've got a blank wall or a bare fence that needs beautifying, you can tend edibles, annuals, even perennials with these vertical gardening ideas — all of which inspire high hopes for the season ahead.

Vertical gardens use a variety of methods to grow herbs, vegetables, and flowers in a structured environment. While there are numerous commercial vertical planters on the market, it is easy to make your own by upcycling items from your garage or attic—or hunting for affordable finds at your local flea market. The key ingredient is good-quality potting soil and a planting vessel that allows for consistent drainage. If you’re wondering whether you have any household items that could be used to build a DIY vertical garden, here are some creative ideas to get you started.

Going to Pot

Make the most of a small backyard space by covering up your worn old fence with these cheap and cheerful painted terra-cotta pots. A few hanging hooks hold the planters in place, and when they're filled with trailing sweet peas, pink petunias, and white alyssum, these pots will draw the eye upward, taking advantage of the vertical space in your garden.

Great Garden Gutters

Do you have some scrap gutters left over from your spring roofing project? If so, clean them, slap on a coat of shiny white paint, and add a couple of lengths of chain. You’ve just turned those gutters into a hanging garden feature for your back deck or front porch.

Boxed Up

Here’s a wonderful project to make use of scrap wood or even wooden drawers from an old bureau. Either grab some old drawers or assemble simple boxes from wood scraps; leave the wood as is or paint it. Fill with soil, plant your herbs, and attach the boxes to your garden wall. If you're feeling adventurous, create a self-watering garden by rigging up a vertical irrigation system.

Wooden Slats

Scrap wood—or a really large old plantation shutter—and a can of purple paint can make a charming vertical garden to house colorful annuals, trailing greenery, and herbs. The angled slats make it easy to fill the garden with potting soil, while a large open frame holds it all together.

Cement Block Garden Wall

This DIY vertical garden uses carefully placed cement block planters and wall components to create a unique feature— and hide the unattractive underside of a concrete front porch. This is a good solution in arid climates and a pretty way to showcase cactus and other plants that thrive in desert soils.

Mason Jar Garden

Don’t throw away those old mason jars once your canning and pickling is complete—use them to make an indoor or outdoor herb wall garden. Metal bands and screws hold the jars in place against a scrap piece of wood for a rustic look. Add your potting soil and plants, and you’ll enjoy inexpensive fresh herbs all year long.

Walking Up the Wall

Once your family has outgrown their crocs, fill up those rubber shoes with dirt and nail them to a garden fence or outdoor wall. This is a great way to add color to a dull spot, both with the bright, well-ventilated shoes and colorful annuals such as vincas, petunias, or impatiens

Pots and Rebar

Old rusty rebar from a concrete project and rows of used terra-cotta planters combine to form this unusual but simple garden wall. This structure creates an attractive showcase for trailing perennials as well as herbs. For a more polished look, spray-paint the rebar black and paint the pots either black to match or white for a dramatic contrast.

Soda Bottle Planters

Instead of cluttering up a landfill with your plastic soda bottles, put them into service outdoors as wall planters. Cut an opening in the center of the bottle, fill the bottom third with soil, and plant a seedling. Arrange the bottles along a white concrete wall or fence, and consider adding color with paints.

Vertical Food Gardens

Taking it a step further, vertical food gardens are ultimately about growing food, and utilising otherwise unused vertical space to stack a lot of functions into one simple system. They provide food while increasing biodiversity and providing more spots for our ever-important bees and insects to stop and pollinate.

They provide beauty in a city’s hard landscapes and increase urban green space, which have positive effects on the mental wellbeing and happiness of residents. They aid the reduction of pollution and the urban heat island effect, helping keep our cities cooler. And importantly they provide learning opportunities – for kids and adults alike.

As we all well know, vertical gardens are a great solution to many challenges within urban spaces. Most cities worldwide lack sufficient green space, and finding ways to incorporate more of the green stuff in our cities where minimal spare land is available has led to a lot of discussion on the benefits of green walls or vertical gardens and green roofs.

Benefits of green walls

The evidence is overwhelming. Vegetation in cities helps regulate air temperature and combats air pollution by trapping particles on leaves. It also reduces local flooding by absorbing rainwater, both at root level and by holding it in the canopy of foliage, while planted areas are known to increase local biodiversity.

Foliage on or around a building acts as an insulating jacket which keeps the building warmer in winter and cooler in summer. This not only reduces carbon emissions but saves on heating and air-conditioning bills.

There are also human benefits, such as improved mental health and reduced stress. “You will get things from a green building that you won’t get from a conventional green space,” says Gary Grant of the Green Roof Consultancy, who designed London’s largest green wall, at the Rubens Hotel in Victoria, London (below left). “It is better for the people using it and the building is more attractive so, for example, if it is next to a restaurant, then you get a busier restaurant.

“One of our clients discovered that it reduced staff turnover. Companies think about saving pennies by changing to low-energy light bulbs, but the money spent making their workers more comfortable or putting a spring in their step ends up having a major financial benefit in terms of reduced recruiting costs.”

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