Garden Styles and How to Choose the Best One for You
Are you planning your garden or adjusting your existing garden plot? You’ll find inspiration to choose the right style and seeds for your ideal garden.
Gardening is a fulfilling and rewarding activity that allows you to connect with nature while beautifying your surroundings. Whether you're an experienced gardener or just starting out, selecting the right type of garden can enhance your gardening experience. Let’s explore various types of gardens, their benefits, popular choices, and the ideal seeds for each garden type.
Chaos Garden
What It Is: A chaos garden is a bit of experimentation in which you combine your left over and, perhaps, old seeds and see what grows. Simply combine all seeds into moistened soil, spread the seeds, water them, and cross your fingers.
Reasons to Plant: Chaos gardens offer a free-spirited approach to gardening, embracing the beauty of randomness and natural growth. Gardeners choose this type to create a vibrant, wild, and visually appealing landscape.
Benefits: Encourages biodiversity, attracts pollinators, low maintenance.
Popular Seed Choices Include: Wildflowers, native plants, self-seeding annuals.
Container Garden
What It Is: Container gardens are grown in pots and planters.
Reasons to Plant: Container gardens are perfect for those with limited space, such as apartment dwellers or urban gardeners. They offer the flexibility to grow plants in pots, allowing mobility and customization.
Benefits: Space-efficient, portable, easy to maintain.
Popular Seed and Plant Choices Include: Tomatoes, herbs, salad greens, dwarf varieties of flowering plants.
Vertical Garden
What It Is: A vertical garden focuses on growing upwards, instead of outwards often using structures to help plants climb.
Reasons to Plant: Vertical gardens maximize space utilization by growing plants vertically. They are suitable for small yards, balconies, or as striking vertical accents in larger gardens. You might even create organic walls with plants for privacy.
Benefits: Maximizes space, adds visual interest, improves air quality.
Popular Seed and Plant Choices Include: Vining plants (such as cucumbers, beans), trailing flowers, roses, succulents.
Community Garden
What It Is: Land gardened or cultivated by a group of people either individually or collectively.
Reasons to Plant: Community gardens promote social interaction, collaboration, and sharing of knowledge and resources. They provide a sense of community and allow individuals without garden space to grow their own produce.
Benefits: Fosters community spirit, encourages healthy eating, promotes sustainable practices.
Popular Seed and Plant Choices Include: Anything you want to grow, including a variety of vegetables, fruits, and flowers based on community preferences.
Raised Bed Garden
What It Is: A garden that is grown in soil that is higher than the ground.
Reasons to Plant: Raised bed gardens are ideal for gardeners seeking better control over soil quality, drainage, and weed management. They are especially helpful for individuals with physical limitations.
Benefits: Improved soil quality, efficient water usage, easier access, and maintenance.
Popular Seed and Plant Choices Include: Root vegetables, herbs, lettuces, dwarf fruit trees.
Herb Garden
What It Is: An herb garden is dedicated to growing edible and medicinal herb seeds and plants either indoors or outdoors.
Reasons to Plant: Herb gardens are popular among culinary enthusiasts who value the convenience of having fresh herbs readily available. They can save you money at the grocery store, too.
Benefits: Fresh herbs for cooking, aromatic foliage, medicinal properties.
Popular Seed and Plant Choices Include: Basil, rosemary, thyme, mint, parsley, cilantro.
Indoor Garden
What It Is: An indoor garden is one that is planned for growing exclusively indoors, although you may have a temporary indoor garden if you germinate seeds ahead of the outdoor growing season to have a faster harvest.
Reasons to Plant: Indoor gardens allow you to bring nature into your home, enhancing air quality and creating a tranquil environment. They are perfect for individuals with limited outdoor space or for year-round gardening.
Benefits: Enhances indoor air quality, reduces stress, provides a green ambiance, allows growing year round.
Popular Seed and Plant Choices Include: Spider plants, pothos, succulents, peace lilies, herbs, ferns.
Apartment Garden
What It Is: A small space garden typically grown in containers and planters.
Reasons to Plant: Apartment gardens cater to the needs of urban dwellers, providing a therapeutic escape from city life and an opportunity to connect with nature.
Benefits: Utilizes limited space, provides a green refuge, reduces urban heat.
Popular Seed and Plant Choices Include: Compact varieties of vegetables, herbs, dwarf fruit trees, hanging plants.
Zen Garden
What It Is: A traditional Zen garden is stress-reducing, minimalistic garden with few plants. It uses a dry landscape and includes natural elements of sand, gravel, rock, or wood.
Reasons to Plant: Zen gardens are designed to create a sense of calm, balance, and harmony through minimalist aesthetics. They serve as tranquil spaces for meditation and contemplation.
Benefits: Promotes relaxation, cultivates mindfulness, enhances outdoor aesthetics.
Popular Seed and Plant Choices Include: Moss, ornamental grasses, bamboo, Japanese maples, bonsai trees, lavender.
Xeriscape Garden
What It Is: A xeriscape garden conserves water by using plants that reduce or eliminate the need for irrigation.
Reasons to Plant: Xeriscape gardens are drought-tolerant landscapes that minimize water consumption. They are ideal for arid regions and for gardeners seeking water-efficient options.
Benefits: Conserves water, reduces maintenance, supports native plants.
Popular Seed and Plant Choices Include: Succulents, cacti, ornamental grasses, native drought-tolerant plants.
Succulent Garden
What It Is: A succulent garden has plants with foliage that is often thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions.
Reasons to Plant: Succulent gardens are admired for their unique shapes, textures, and low water requirements. They are popular among those looking for low-maintenance and visually appealing gardens.
Benefits: Water-efficient, visually striking, easy to propagate.
Popular Seed and Plant Choices Include: Aloe vera, jade plants, Echeveria, sedums, agave.
Find the perfect match for your gardening aspirations. Each garden style offers its unique benefits and charms. Selecting the right seeds and plants for your chosen garden type will ensure a successful and fulfilling gardening experience.
