When I started my vertical garden, it was a small affair, just a few herbs like basil, mint and Rosemary. Then I added cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers and burpless cucumbers and my garden has now expanded to plants on Shepard hooks and on hooks attached to the fences. Additionally, I started adding some decorations like stake type art, one of which has a solar light included!
The whole point of starting this type of garden was that my Shorkie, Brandy, is very destructive and I still wanted something pretty to look at besides the gray fence. So, my first thought was “why not plant something we can use”? Hence the herbs and veggies. That wasn’t enough however, we were still looking at the ugly gray fence, so a few weeks later, we added the flowers and decorations. I still plan to add more to the fence when the temps start going down a bit. Hey, it’s hot in Texas right now!
My inspiration was a beautiful pin I saw on Pinterest and not only were there plants all along the fence, the fence itself was painted like a flower garden! Very inspirational and so much talent needed I’m sure. The first challenge I faced when starting to put plants on the fence was how to hang them without the weight pulling on the fence. First I came up with over-the-door hooks to hang from the support board from the neighbors side. That ended up being where I hung other decorations like a tiny birdhouse and a pretty sun. You see, I would have had to find half baskets and I’m on a budget here.
Ultimately, we ended up getting strong decorative metal hooks that my husband was kind enough to install on the support posts of the fence. They proved quite strong and now I have a plant hanging from each one, three in all. There are other ways to hang more plants at one time, like a long box held by brackets or maybe even half baskets that would hang flush with the fence. Truth is, the weather got hot and I decided to wait to add more because I’ve created enough I have to water already!
We have managed to harvest a few cherry tomatoes and a sweet pepper plus I use the basil for many things. The mint comes in handy as well if you like to make infused waters for instance. Also, it’s wonderful to have pretty flowers, lights and decorations to look at now all out of my puppy’s reach!
