The Spruce
Happy Monday! I spent the weekend at Home Depot buying flower seeds. Now, this is the first time I’m starting my garden from seeds, so I’m documenting it for you and hopefully you can learn from my successes (and failures). So, let’s talk about my small space flower garden plans for a colorful terrace that attracts butterflies.
I spent a good amount of time researching flowers to plant. It surprisingly isn’t too difficult to find annuals that thrive in full sun conditions like I have. Score! I had so much fun looking at plant groupings for containers and figuring out what flowers to pair up. I am literally painting a 3D balcony canvas with plants. I’m going with the tried and true flower strategy of “thriller, filler, and spiller”.
This year, I decided not to do any vegetables and just focus on flowers. You need a lot of space for vegetables in order to have a bounty and for me, it takes up too much space for what little it yields. However, if you are interested in planting veggies, I highly recommend the resource square foot gardening.
The Spruce
I found great inspiration from container garden images from Southern Living and BHG. Truth be told, I have never started flowers from seeds, which means I haven’t had the opportunity to really build a container from scratch. So, I’ll start my seeds indoors then in 4-6 weeks after the last frost, I’ll transplant outside and that’s when the fun will really begin.
I am modeling my garden after an English garden, with a few tweaks. What I love about English gardens is their ability to create an oasis that feels like you’re in the middle of the country. It’s pretty rainy in England, so the gardens are lush lush lush. I’m looking for deliberate groupings of thrillers, spillers, fillers, and climbers. My garden will look overgrown, yet polished. Confused yet?
My Small Space Flower Garden
My terrace is a little smaller than 7.5′ x 7.5′, and I don’t live in the ground floor so all of my planting will be in containers. A few months ago, I actually had the opportunity to move to the first floor in my building and have a backyard. But, unfortunately, when I went to see the apartment, I discovered the ceilings were about 2 feet lower than mine, there were less windows, and therefore the space was dark and cavernous. I’ll keep my third floor sunny terrace, thanks.
Urban Gardens NYC
My small space flower garden will be drawing inspiration from an English garden as well as a bohemian oasis. I’ll be putting together a lot of different plant combinations in my containers, to give the illusion of an overgrown and unruly English garden. Most English gardens are heavy on greenery and low on color, whereas, I’ll be doing the opposite.
Now, one thing New Yorkers know how to do is build up. When you don’t have much space horizontally, you go vertical. I’ll be attaching affordable string lattice to the balcony railing as well as window boxes. If I get really daring, I’ll build a vertical wall garden.
I have a few different types of plants that will climb the railing, as well as flowers of varying heights. Designing a garden is a lot like designing an interior. You have to add interest to each plane in the space, which is why we are growing flowers of various heights. My small space flower garden will be high impact, despite being small in stature.
Garden Inspiration
I will be mixing cool and warm colors, and then peppering in some neutrals like alyssum and daisies. I plan to paint my pots a solid color (TBD) so that they all match and the flowers will be the star of the show. This is also a great way to make your garden look more clean if you are wanting a lot of different types of flowers like I am.
I looked up different flower groupings and I will list ones I am doing below. When grouping flowers, you should see what the soil and watering needs of the plant are, and group similar needs. For example, if one plant needs moist soil and another needs dry soil, they won’t get along near each other.
Companion Plants
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verbena, zinnia, daisy, marigold
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salvia, zinnia, alyssum, verbena, cosmos, sunflower
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lobelia, petunia, daisy
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zinnia, marigold, sunflower, hollyhock, daisy
What I’m Planting
Gorgeous, right? My small space flower garden is going to be so colorful with tons of interest. Most of these flowers attract butterflies! To visualize, think of this chart like a bookcase. Low is the first shelf, medium is the second, tall, is the third, climbing is the top shelf. You can picture the height of the flowers and how each layer will look against the other.
I spent time trying to figure this out and would be honored if you would steal my ideas for your own garden. Sharing is caring, people! All of my flowers thrive in full sun and I am a plant hardiness zone 7. You can check your plant hardiness zone with Farmer’s Almanac. A hardiness zone is basically a zone where you live that determines what plants will thrive there.
Stay tuned for more from this small space flower garden that will hopefully thrive! Gardening brings me so much joy🙂
-Kristen
More inspiration…
