Spruce up your balcony in 2024 with blooms, greens and more for a refreshing look.
Balcony gardens are simple, easy and cost-effective way to spruce up your balcony. More importantly, they make us believe in intangibles and how everyday sights and green can bring so much happiness into our lives. Gardens have always been built outside the home. They lift the mood of the space, brighten it up and afford a large canvas to grow a variety of plants and vegetables. With the lack of space, gardens began to be taken inside the home, overlooking the window sill, in spots where the sun streamed in and even bedrooms and guest areas.
Balcony gardens are a very recent trend. The need to hark back to a previous time coupled with brick and concrete is pushing many urban people to develop them even in a little space. Many living in apartments and who want to experiment with their creativity, are using balcony gardens as their canvas.
Dreaming about a balcony garden is fun, but getting started can take quite the effort. There are so many designs, but what might work in a small balcony may not work in a larger space. Plants that are meant for window sills may not grow so well when placed on the floor. Beginning with an idea and planning around it will give you a balcony garden, that is both beautiful, intelligent and personalised for you and your home.
As versatile as they are and trendy they’ve become, there are a few balcony garden ideas and designs are going to take 2024 by storm. Let’s take a look at what is in store, shall we?
Add A Ray Of Sunshine In Your Balcony Garden Design
Unlike shaded balconies, sunny balconies have the fierce rays of the sun falling on them all day through and even for the better part of the year. They are generally found at the top portion of tall apartments where other buildings don’t block off the light. Sunny balconies are great for growing fruit and flowers. Brightly coloured pots break the monotony while the hard sun can be shielded out by umbrella wherever necessary. Sunny balcony gardens are a dream space to own. They do well with natural light and can be designed to have kids playing around, a picnic lunch or basically catching up with family.
Scrap Wood Furniture For A Rough, Edgy Decor
Scrapwood gardens are put together from recycled and repurposed wood and have a charm all their own. They can be cleverly designed to showcase the grain which contrasts beautifully with bright coloured flowers and green. Create some subtle lighting, hang wicker pots and baskets and this roughly hewn space is great as a bar corner for friends or provides a perfect backdrop for festivities.
Micro Park Balcony Gardens
Dream up all the beautiful flowers, herbs, creepers and plants in your neighborhood park, and bring them all to your little garden. This is quite possible and will be seen in a number of homes in the coming year. A suffuse of plants in different hues and varieties, placed around where the light falls or with a little shade is like bringing a slice of heaven to your own home. This doesn’t need much planning or design, but care and much personal indulgence.
Vertical Hanging Gardens In The Balcony
Vertical balcony gardens became possible as balconies grew smaller and 2024 will see a surfeit of them in Indian homes. Hanging pots and planters on metal grills, a standing bamboo with recycled plastic bottle planters and even wall plants have been a recurring feature in homes. Hanging baskets and pots use simple eye hole hooks, metal stands and bolts. Staggering the pots and mixing plants adds visual interest. It is also easier to water vertical gardens and distribute sunlight to plants.
Modern Balcony Gardens
Combining modern minimal living with a suffuse of flowers and plants, modern balcony gardens carefully combine look and comfort effortlessly. Simple cane furniture with glass tables, subtle hidden lighting and wood-panelled walls with delicate porcelain pots and planters bring together this look effortlessly. Modern balconies emphasise on minimalism, simplicity of tone and have plants that go with the theme.
Grow Those Kitchen Herbs
Whether you decide to do it on the window sill or dedicate an entire balcony to it, growing herbs and some vegetables are a convenient way to grow your own food here. Parsley, oregano, ginger, mint and spring onion don’t occupy much space, can be grown on vertical wooden pallets and require minimal watering. Vertical gardens need holes for proper drainage but provide more produce for less effort.
Colour It Up
While flowers themselves make for colourful balcony gardens, not all of them grow all the year through. Alternate different kinds of flowers and plants, place contrasting colours everywhere, see for the kinds of plants that require sunlight or can manage with shade. Rotating plants and pots around will make your balcony garden more vibrant, interesting and textured. Matching plant markers, oxidised red flooring, bright furniture and embellished balcony walls up the look of the space.
Home Extension Gardens
Sometimes apartments can be really small, restrictive and congested which is not good for the health and mental peace of people living in them. A great way to make a living space appear bigger is by blending the balcony and home together. Building a glass-fronted sliding door that extends to the garden, a suffuse of plants and pots strewn all over and furniture that brings together the interiors and exteriors breaks down separation. Catch breakfast in the morning or gather around for a picnic over the weekends, balcony gardens like these make for a great outdoor space.
Bring The Elegance Of Everything European
Europeans have a minimal design aesthetics but suffuse their spaces with flowers and plants. Their window gardens can be replicated in Indian homes to add drama and much spice. A bouquet of petunias or roses, window boxes with creepers hung outside, small pots with cacti offset by simple yet beautiful decor and furniture transforms the look of any house balcony.
Balcony gardens in India are not that difficult to create but did sufficient care and attention. Our changing seasons need to be factored in to provide them with the utmost care so they look bright, colourful and productive no matter what time of the year they may be. With these trends occupying most of 2024, many of them will carry onto 2024 and gather the same or even more attention.