Plan your indoor garden

By Chirag Sharma

Add a dash of greenery to boxy apartment living with a personalized indoor garden. Here are some tip-offs on how you can accomplish an easy care garden – in style!

Your garden should ideally be an extension of your home, both practically and visually. Evolve a style you would like to adopt and character you would like it to embody. Be aware of the limitations of your plot. Or shall we say your windowsill, or grill base, or balcony?!

What kind of foliage would you like? A flowering nook bringing sunshine and spring indoors? Creepers that cool, adding that elusive touch of whimsy to your décor? Or better still, an herb garden that serves you with a dual purpose of shaping up as well?!

Well, no matter what you choose; tick off the availability of time needed to tend to your garden and off with those creepy shivers that inadvertently creep up your spine when you see a wiggly worm or two! Next, get yourself a pair of good shears, a spray bottle, and a trendy yellow watering can that you can leave around adding to the element of outdoors as a natural extension of your living style.

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Now to get those green fingers into action with these hands-on pointers:

·         Always remember that the choice of plants and the accessorizing material is essentially related to the overall décor.

·         The scale and shapes that you choose in the little pieces of marble or granite that you may pick up as base, or the polished pebbles that lie waiting in your basket to add the finishing touch, mark a link to the surroundings relating interiors to outdoors.

·         The most common problem with balcony gardens as with open window patches is their exposure to cold winds. A screen is therefore necessary to shield the plants on the windward side – glass, slatted wooden verticals, bamboo… take your pick with careful attention to the overall aesthetic.  

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·         Exploit the vertical space available to the extent possible, training creepers up towards the light. These will soften the harsh structural outlines of the building, coordinate with grills, and obscure the city views creating your own privy niche. Also, try the readily available vertical garden options that can be installed anywhere.

·         Hang planters in wired baskets or little coloured ceramic pots. Flat-based pots hanging from a wall or from overhead beams are also recommended.

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·         Good old wooden boxes and odd pieces of useless furniture can be innovatively adapted to troughs for planters, plant stands, and other embellishing components for your garden.

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·         Always consider the sitting of containers. Different materials often make an effective display and emphasize the shapes and textures of plants.

·         Buy or better still, make a potted table display, nurture a bonsai or grow a terrarium!

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