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Urban-gardening advocate and community activist Ron Finley is in the middle of a sun-soaked pool at his office in south Central Los Angeles, but he isn’t swimming. Instead, he’s sitting at a table surrounded by all manner of potted plants he has cultivated since 2010.
Gesturing around, Finley notes how the pool turned plant patio is an example of how anything can become the scene of an urban gardening experiment. The pool shows “you what the possibilities can be if you rethink what you’re doing, if we rethink urban areas,” says Finley, who also teaches a gardening course on the premium education site MasterClass.
Of course, taking care of dozens of plants isn’t easy, and most of us don’t have a literal swimming pool’s worth of space to house them. But urban gardening isn’t one specific way to grow plants; it’s a spectrum of cultivation techniques utilizing available space. But all that variety means you need to identify exactly what you want out of the experience to avoid starting projects that aren’t right for you.
Do you want to grow half your summer grocery list or just enough to stop buying plastic packs of herbs? Your motivation may be purely aesthetic; what better way to hide a peeling paint job than with edible plants?
Once you know your motivation, consider these urban-gardening methods:
Urban gardening methods
The name says it all: Instead of a traditional horizontal layout, a vertical garden takes your plants to new heights. Sometimes called “green walls” or “living walls,” Although they’re more often seen in commercial settings for their aesthetic appeal, there’s no reason you can’t bring vertical gardens into your home if there’s sufficient lighting and structural support and a way to comfortably water it, says Dwane Jones, the dean of the University of the District of Columbia’s agriculture, urban sustainability, and environmental sciences college.
Stick a few plants in a few different pots, and boom—you have a container garden! A container garden is literally any plant potted in any sort of pot or vessel as opposed to planted directly into the earth. One benefit is the portability; it’s not hard to rearrange your garden into a better combination if you can pick it up. Another bonus? You can bring plants in during the wintertime or, of course, just sit them on whatever window sill, bookshelf, or corner of the room you want.
Somewhere between a container garden and a planted-in-ground garden, a raised-bed garden is essentially a large vessel or box built to a slew of soil above ground. They tend to be around about 18 to 24 square feet in area and are easier to water than a standard container garden, according to Nick Cutsumpas, a gardening expert and landscape designer on Netflix’s Instant Dream Home.
“Sometimes those containers, depending on the material you’re using…dry out really, really quickly,” he says. “Everything is just a little bit more extreme in a container because it experiences heat and cold in a different way.”
If you have access to a secure roof where you can safely cultivate plants, you’re already one giant step closer toward having a rooftop garden. Basically a container garden on a rooftop, they’re a great way to take advantage of otherwise unutilized space.
But given the exposure to the elements, rooftop gardens can take a beating. Plus, since it’s still a container garden, the volatility of that growing environment still is a concern. “Many clients of mine in New York, if they have containers on rooftops, we'll need to wrap them in burlap for a season because that plant or that tree is not getting the warmth that would from the soil if it was in the ground,” says Cutsumpas.
Increasingly more grocery stores seem to be selling produce grown hydroponically, meaning they were cultivated in a water-filled vessel under grow lights and provided with a nutrient solution. A plethora of new plug-and-play hydroponic setups makes it easy to do so at home. The kits are available at different scales to accommodate your space, from a few herbs to enough lettuce to give everyone on your block salad for a week. It’s possible to build your own setups as well, although those require more engineering know-how.
“When people speak of urban gardening, most people think of community gardens, which are comprised of spaces probably a half-acre or larger where a group of people have…[an] allocation of space,” says Jones.
If your home is too small or doesn’t get enough sunlight for your ambitions, a neighborhood community garden can be a strong alternative to urban gardening at home (as well as a great way to make like-minded friends). But if your community is like many across the country, you may have to sit on a waitlist until a plot becomes available. Sign up as soon as possible to try to snag a coveted plot.
This method is admittedly not a typical pursuit among urban gardeners. Like hydroponics, an aquaponics setup involves growing plants in water. But a key difference is that in aquaponics the tank doubles as a habitat for fish, which fertilize the plants with their poop. So while you likely don’t have the space to raise enough fish and produce to feed your roommates, a small aquaponics setup can be an attractive and functional way to grow some crops, like lettuce.
Four tips for helping your garden flourish
Regardless of whether the garden will be completely outdoors or not, map out where you want to put certain structures and species of plants, and take note of the environmental conditions of that spot. According to Jones, if it’s too shady, sunny, or windy, you may find yourself heaving heavy pots to more appropriate places or rearranging furniture.
If you rent, read your lease before getting too invested in your plan. Some leases don’t allow fish tanks or standing basins of water. Others might not allow anything that changes the aesthetic from a passerby’s point of view, or bar you from accessing roofs or adding pots to public spaces. And if you can’t put holes in the walls, a vertical garden would require creative thinking to craft an alternative hanging or attachment structure.
If you own your place (congrats, BTW), you still want whatever method and containers you choose to be safely within the weight limits of the furniture, walls, or balconies you’ll be using to host your garden. For a rooftop garden, the safe arrangement of containers should be the number one priority for both you and anyone down below.
“If it's an elevated setting like a balcony up on the third or fourth floor…you may want [vessels that are] secure and heavy, as opposed to something that's light that might blow away or leak,” suggests Jones. For minor alterations (like nailing hooks into a brick wall), research those specific materials to maintain their look and functionality.
“I think primarily [urban gardeners] shouldn’t be growing in the ground, because even people who have a little bit of ground space, it might be contaminated with lead paint or some other things that are part of the history of an urban space,” says Brie Gluvna, an author and professional horticulturist. Gardens at ground level may be exposed to litter, like discarded cigarette butts, or passing dogs, she adds.
Cutsumpas agrees, noting that a soil test from a respected academic center or laboratory can illuminate what’s lurking out back.
“When there’s so much building turnover in urban areas, you start to run into problems because your plot might be completely empty, but there may have been three buildings or a chemical plant there before,” he explains. “Not everyone in construction is great about removing chemicals and debris like they should be.”
Gluvna suggests looking for “an actual compost material” over traditional potting soil because “it holds more nutrients and more water, so it’s going to be lower maintenance overall and has some natural fertility built in, so you won’t have to fertilize as often.” And you don’t have to drop a ton of money to get a quality product.
In cities like Washington, DC, “rats are almost as common as squirrels,” says Kehmari Norman, a community-garden specialist with that city’s parks and recreation agency. If you live in a community with an abundance of rodents, consider raising plant structures several feet up to reduce accessibility.
“There’s also super organic strategies that we recommend and share, like growing chili peppers and spicy produce in the perimeter and entrances to your garden spaces that could deter those pests,” she adds.
While rats are a known problem in American cities, other garden villains—like beavers or groundhogs—may not be as obvious to the novice urban gardener. “The groundhogs will come in and play thieves in the night and take tomatoes and eggplants and other produce that you’re growing,” Norman remarks with a laugh. For a list of potential community pests and humane, organic ways to keep them at bay, check with your local agricultural extension programs.
