Have you ever thought your garden needs more space? Perhaps you've wanted to plant a new flowerbed but don't want to get rid of your existing shrubs to make room?
Or maybe you've considered growing your own vegetables and herbs but you've just no extra space in which to put them?
Short of moving house, there's little that most of us can do when confronted with choices like these.
There is a solution, though, which has been growing in popularity across the world in recent years – vertical gardening.
Green walls have become more and more common and are usually used for decorative purposes. They can have a practical use, too, however.
If you've some extra space in the garden in the form of a bare wall, you could put it to use by planting upwards.
There are challenges to overcome, of course – gravity being the main one – but with a bit of DIY you could soon have a flourishing wall garden
A number of different approaches to vertical gardening are common. The first tend to have soil packed into a bag or shelf and these are then installed, piece by piece, onto walls.
The disadvantage to this method is that soil tends to wash away when exposed to the elements and could need to be replaced every year or so.
Mat-based systems can be used to overcome these problems, as there is no chance of soil eroding away.
These can be useful in some environments, although the mats do not tend to allow a great deal of root growth and need to be replaced frequently.
Your best bet is probably structural media – these incorporate both blocks and mats and tend to last a lot longer than the other types.
A wide range of products is available to help you get started on your vertical gardening projects – plant pots that can be mounted on walls are particularly popular.
Pockets can be bought that are made out of a recycled material, and they can be used to grow most annuals, plus small edibles and perennials.
Trays are also available and can be used to grow plants with shallow root systems.
If you're a particularly keen DIY expert, though, you could make your own vertical garden. Drainpipes can be used as containers for your vertically-mounted plants – simply fill them with soil, add your plants and mount them on your wall.
Watering your plants could prove difficult, particularly if you've got a high wall and you're not too fond of abseiling.
Hoses and watering cans could be used to water low-lying vertical gardens, but if you've built a tall garden, you can install irrigation systems that use gravity to drip-water the plants after you've attached a hose to the end. Some vertical gardening kits include irrigation systems.
Vegetables are ideal for vertical gardening, but if you're keen to decorate, you could use ferns, geraniums, hoya, rock lilies and a host of others.
So why let those bare walls go to waste? With a bit of ingenuity, you could soon be gardening vertically.
