What Does Vertical Garden Mean?
A vertical garden is a garden that grows upward (vertically) using shelving, trellis, or another support system, rather than on the ground (horizontally).
The goal of a vertical garden is to maximize the grow space but growing upward instead of outward. Tower gardens, pocket planters, living walls, and even hanging baskets are examples of a vertical garden. Anything grown on a trellis or even a fence is technically part of a vertical garden.
Vertical gardens are popular for growing vegetables, herbs, and fruit.
Maximum Yield Explains Vertical Garden
Vertical gardening is used by many as a means to ensure they are using their garden space, whether indoors or outdoors, to its maximum potential.
If you have experience with gardening, it's likely you've already employed vertical gardening techniques like staking and trellising. A simple structure formed by bamboo poles can allow bean plants to climb vertically, providing more growing space than would be possible in a conventional horizontal garden. Cucumbers, squash, and even tomatoes are often grown vertically, as well.
Climbing plants and vines are far from the only options when it comes to vertical gardening, however. With a little planning and the right materials, vertical gardens can be created that allow you to grow virtually anything. This includes scaffolding, shelving systems, pallets, and more. A number of DIY kits can be found that use cups, bottles, or containers set in rows in the face of a vertical support. Ideally, the type of vertical garden you create will suit the growth pattern of the plants you want to grow.
Harvesting crops from a vertical garden is significantly easier than with a conventional on-the-ground garden. Because you are able to harvest while standing mostly upright or completely upright (depending on the vertical level being harvested), as opposed to kneeling or squatting on the ground, vertical gardening is easier on the back and legs, and many people with arthritis or other disabilities find it highly beneficial.
Vertical gardening dates back to the French method of growing vertical fruit trees by pruning espalier, a method of pruning a fruit tree so that it doesn’t have the branching effect of conventional orchard trees and can be grown in a vertical orientation on a trellis or fence. Some vineyards prune and grow grapes in a vertical orientation.
When vertical gardening practices are employed on a large scale, particularly when combined with controlled environment agriculture, it is known as vertical farming.
