Short of space? Welcome to Vertical Gardening!

Many of us these days live in flats, we may not have more than a small balcony or patio and consider ourselves not to have a garden - wrong! What about the balcony sides and the wall by your door?

This is a great area for growing plants vertically. Starting with the very simple, plants can be trained by inserting masonry nails into the cement of the brick work at separate vertical points and fishing line run between them, this is perfect for growing annual climbers, which won’t become to woody or heavy. If you're looking to grow more perennial plants, use vine eyes (screws with a circular head) and run galzinised wire in between. Then we have the more traditional method of vertical gardening, the use of trellis. Instead of using the usual rectangle trellis, why not be a bit more adventurous, for example, use three circles of trellis (you can cut square wooden trellis pieces into circles with a jig), and pitch them at different heights and spacing.

Again, if space is at a premium, how about some tapestry planting. This is the idea of taking a number of plants and letting them grow intertwined. In the case of vertical gardening, its climbers we are concerned with, so how about the idea of seasonal tapestry planting. We could have winter Jasmine, followed in spring by a Clematis, summer time can be taken up by a plant with a long flowering period, an old Rose would be perfect. Finally, in autumn, lets go for some foliage colour.

This is a great time of year to add instant imact vertically with bedding or patio plants. You can buy flower pouches which are a bit like vertical grow bags. Simply plant with impatiens, pansies, and trailling bedding plants for a wow statement on your vertical wall space.