Most of us instinctively feel that being close to plants and greenery boosts our mood and brings us at ease with our surroundings. When we decorate our interior spaces with plants, we’re not just adding greenery, but plants also interact with us and our homes in ways that enhance the quality of our life. Living within aesthetically pleasing and meaningful landscapes enhances our sense of well-being. Plants also add a pop of colour and bring life to any space. When it is too hot outdoors, you’ll feel cool viewing your greenery and when it is freezing outside, plants will usher in a sense of warmth.
Whether you are one with an outdoor garden, a backyard, terrace or a kitchen garden or with indoor plants in an apartment, everyone is entitled to enjoy the beauty & joys of gardening, and through this article, we will explore some interesting landscaping & gardening ideas, and how you can adapt them for your indoor spaces.
Go Minimal & Classy With String Gardens or Kokedama
“Kokedama”(Moss Ball) or string garden is Japanese garden art and is a beautiful & unique way to display plants. Simple yet elegant, a Kokedama or a moss ball is made by wrapping a plant’s roots with moist soil that is shaped into a ball and then it is covered with moss and a string is wrapped around the ball to keep everything together. For watering a kokedama, you should feel its weight and when the ball feels light, it can be submerged in water for some time.
The best plants for kokedama string garden are the ones that grow slowly, have small root systems and can withstand soil conditions varying between soggy and dry. It’s best to use plants that suit your living environment, for example, if you want to keep your moss balls in an area which does not receive any sunlight then you should select plants like philodendron or pothos that can grow well even in shade. For sunny areas, asparagus & succulents will be a good choice.
Kokedama creates a striking point of interest, drawing attention not only to the flowers and foliage but also to the aesthetically pleasing green moss ball at the bottom of the plant. Enliven your home with kokedama balls by setting them on trays or flat dishes, or by hanging them from ceilings. It will be especially rewarding to surround yourself with kokedama balls you’ve made yourself. This gardening idea let’s you be creative and will help you elevate your room decor with a beautiful display of kokedama balls.
Image: Stringgardens.com 
Image: Stringgardens.com 
Experience Dry Gardening With Japanese Zen Garden
Amidst the vicious circle of our busy lives, there has to be something that gives us a moment of peace. The Japanese rock garden or “dry landscape” garden, also called a zen garden, is a stylized landscape with creatively composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and uses gravel or sand that can be raked and represents ripples in water.
Zen gardens emphasize the principles of naturalness, simplicity, and austerity and also serve a deeper and a spiritual purpose: to serve as an aid for meditation and finding your inner peace. When you re-rake the pattern of sand to reshape the sand ripples, you are taking your concentration away from the stressful environment, to the elements of nature. This activity is de-stressing in itself.
A full-scale outdoor Zen garden may contain additional features like a simple bridge or a path and lanterns. These features will act as a focal point of your garden. The swirling patterns in the sand give a complete look to a Zen garden. These lines are important as they have a calming effect on the mind. In older times, monks used to re-rake the patterns of the sand in reference to their mind.
Be it your home or your workstation at the office, this gardening idea is adaptable to any size and thus make a great companion for meditating and for being close to nature. For a smaller version of a Zen garden, all you need is an empty tray or shallow container to contain sand. You can decide its size depending upon the area where it will be kept. Add sand, rocks or stones, a small patch of moss or a small succulent plant or air plant, a rake or fork to create sand ripples, and your Zen garden is ready. The best feature of this garden is its ability to be re-designed again and again. You can move around and re-arrange stones, rake the sand in different patterns and you’ll have new and unique mini landscapes, as often as you want. Some table-top Zen gardens are available here.
Green Walls: Go Vertical With This Gardening Idea if You Have Limited Floor Space
Green walls/ living walls or vertical gardening is a technique used to grow plants on a vertically suspended panel. A vertical garden or a green wall can either be freestanding or attached to a wall. While potted plants have the advantage of being placed anywhere, they can take up a lot of floor space. However, with vertical gardens, there is only one large panel to maintain, and it won’t take up any floor space.
Large scale vertical gardens or green walls are usually installed on the exterior facades, but small-scale tiered gardens can be easily installed in your balconies, terraces, and even inside your homes. You don’t have to put in a lot of work to install a vertical garden, panels of vertically tiered planters are available and you just need to fix them on the wall and plant them with your favourite plants.
The best plants for vertical gardens are dense, compact and slow-growing. Make sure you choose species that suit the aspect of the wall on which they’ll be growing. A wall receiving sunlight will need a selection of fairly drought-tolerant plants, whereas a shady spot will require a selection of shade-loving plants, such as ferns, pothos etc.
Create Miniature Gardens With Terrariums
A terrarium or a florarium is usually a closed glass container containing soil and plants which can be opened to access and maintain the plants inside. Closed terraria create a unique environment for plant growth, as the transparent walls allow for both heat and light to enter the terrarium, and the water vapour evaporated from plants gets condensed on the inner walls of the container and then falls back into the soil again. This contributes to creating an ideal environment for growing plants due to the constant supply of water, creating a small water cycle inside.
It is not always necessary to make a terrarium in a closed container, you can have one in an open or semi-open container as well, and you can water them manually. Terrariums can be suspended from ceilings, hanged on walls or kept on tabletops or shelves. You can add interesting tit-bits like small figurines, different types of stones or even coloured sand to make them look more colourful and appealing. A terrarium assembled in a stylish glass planter looks like a miniature garden and makes for a stunning centre-piece.
Hydroponics: An Idea For Gardening With Latest Technology
Hydroponics is a gardening technique without the use of a traditional medium(soil) and involves growing them by using a nutrient like a mineral-rich water solution instead. Water that is used in hydroponic gardening stays in the system and can be reused, reducing the constant need for freshwater supply. Hydroponics also lends itself really well to indoor gardening because of its compact form and no requirement of soil.
If you ever thought in your wildest dreams that gardening could be a plug-and-play sort of a thing, your dreams may have come true. Many intelligent hydroponic systems have been designed all over the world, with varying levels of automation. One such product is “Smart Garden” by an Indian company Agro2o. It’s an IoT (internet of things) solution which automates the complete process of growing plants using advanced hydroponics and intelligent growing algorithms. It comes with a fully automated system using advanced technology that requires minimum supervision, but full control over the growth of plants. It’s super convenient to use and can be accessed/monitored through an app on your phone. This product can be pre-ordered here. Wow, isn’t that amazing, the joy & exhilaration of growing your own food with the help of cutting edge technology. What more could one ask for?
There are many more hydroponic systems available, depending on the level of automation you may want and your size requirements. The products shown below may be bought here & here.
The purpose of sharing these unique concepts of landscaping & gardening with you is to express that incorporating plants and greenery is possible for anyone and anywhere, irrespective of one’s gardening abilities or the size of one’s spaces. All of the above gardening ideas can be brought to fruition by yourself, and you don’t need any experts or professionals to do the job unless you want them on a very large scale. Incorporating these gardening ideas will not just satisfy your desire to grow and tend to your own plants, but will also attract the attention of your visitors and guests, showing not just your love for greenery but also your keen sense of style & creativity.
If you would like to know about some exotic plants for your indoor spaces then you may read this article. For more creative ways of styling your indoor plants, read this article.
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Greetings! Very useful advice in this particular article!
It is the little changes that will make the largest changes.
Thanks a lot for sharing!