A famous writer once wrote that instead of dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon, we should enjoy the roses that are blooming outside our window today. Make your balcony your favourite part of the house where you can soak in the fresh air and unwind. This place could be your sanctuary, your haven, your place to escape to when the chaos in your life becomes too much.
When you don’t have the luxury of space in the city (such as Mumbai ;)), spruce up your apartment’s balcony garden, and make it a green retreat for yourself! Here are some tips for a contemporary garden design.
Add Some Railing Planters
Even with quite a few potted plants, bare railings around the balcony give a wide scope to have a charming balcony garden design. Fix up a few planters on the railings, as many or as few as you like, choosing from the variety of plants available in different shapes and colours. If you feel store-bought metal or clay planters just don’t go with your balcony gardening decor, you could make some yourself by using wooden crates and metal hooks.
Go ahead and fill up these planters with flowering plants, herbs or creepers of your choice. Be prepared to get awed by the riot of greenery and colours in your balcony soon!
Get some bird feeders
Want to unwind in your cosy balcony with the sound of birds chirping? You can consider getting some bird feeders. There are a number of options available online and in gardening stores – from hanging ones to those that can affix on a wall of your balcony. Take your pick! You can also follow the DIY instructions to make your own bird feeders by using empty, clean plastic jars. While you are at it, you could consider adding a little bird bath to your balcony.
Keep these bird feeders stocked up with grain, and see how they attract those feathered beauties in no time.
Invest in some balcony furniture
Get some furniture specially designed for use in balconies – maybe a centre table and a couple of chairs or a reading sofa. Make sure you choose outdoor furniture that you would feel comfortable settling in for hours on end. Look for balcony furniture online or at the furniture and garden stores near you – there are plenty of options to choose from.
If you are on a tight budget, you could turn some wooden crates into comfortable seating and table arrangements for your balcony. Just turn the crates upside down, give them a splash of paint in a funky colour, let them dry out completely, and arrange them the way you want. There you are! A simple, little plastic table with plastic chairs could do the trick.
Not a fan of formal balcony seating? Get a hammock, the cosier, the better!
Light up
Light up your balcony with soothing lights. You could use Christmas lights, paper lanterns, little glass chandeliers or small lanterns.Putting some traditional Indian lamps or strings of lights in your balcony could do wonders to the way the place looks.
A Corner for Herbs
Dedicate a space for balcony gardening to grow different kinds of herbal plants. Many herbs aren’t easily available in the market and growing your own plants like rosemary, oregano, thyme or lemongrass isn’t difficult at all. For the evenings when you decide to cook up something out of the ordinary, you could just step into the balcony and your choice of fresh herbs is ready.
Besides the availability of ready and organic herbs, most herbs exude the slight aroma that would make the aura of the balcony really soothing.
Consider some hanging planters
Put up some metal hooks on your balcony ceiling or above the railing, and add some hanging planters. More plants, more greenery, more colour and more beautiful your sanctuary will look, giving you a contemporary garden design.
You could choose from the wide variety of hanging planters available these days from plastic to biodegradable material.
Put up some window boxes
If your balcony shares a common wall with your kitchen, you could add a couple of window boxes too. It would be a great idea to plant some flowering plants or small vegetables in these boxes.
Imagine reaching out to these boxes while cooking in your kitchen, and plucking a few herbs or home-grown vegetables to add to your food. Nothing quite like that, right?
Get wall planters
Need even more greenery for your balcony gardening? Go for some wall planters. These come in a varied shapes and sizes, and can be easily attached to your balcony walls.
You could use some wooden crates and metal hooks to craft them on your own. Plastic bottles can be up-cycled and used as wall planters.
Add a splash of colours
Choose little quirky decor items in your signature style, to add to your balcony – a small rug here, a ceramic frog there, a watering can, to place it in a corner, a curtain for the window, or a few cushions for your reading sofa. You could choose to colour-coordinate these, or just let yourself go and pick up everything in a different colour.
The end result will be a relaxing space, a retreat that screams ‘You’!
Follow these tips with a pinch of your creativity to decorate your balcony with a contemporary garden design like never before. Beautify your little space to unwind and admire the beauty around.
See? Turning your apartment balcony into your green refuge is not so difficult after all. Why not start working on it right now and start 2016 with a bang!
References: https://in.pinterest.com/explore/apartment-balcony-decorating/
