Enjoy a Lush, Lovely Garden—and Keep Your Landlord Happy—with Portable Plants and Planters
Sweetly fragrant roses, perfuming the air. Sun-warmed tomatoes, sliced for a delicious Caprese salad. Vibrant, nectar-rich blooms, delighting hummingbirds and butterflies. If you crave a peaceful oasis filled with flowers, fragrance, and food, you’ll love growing a garden—even if your landlord discourages digging in the dirt.
Whether you rent a high-rise apartment or lease a cute bungalow, it’s easy to create a great garden space. Some landlords may allow you to plant whatever you’d like on their property, but the reality is–many restrictions typically apply in a rent or lease arrangement. And while adding a few annuals to a front walkway is an inexpensive way to create charm, planting shrubs, perennials, and trees on a property someone else owns doesn’t provide a good return on your investment of time or money, especially if you move.
Instead, create a gorgeous garden with portable plants: beautiful blooms, fabulous foliage, and tasty treats grown in pots, hanging baskets, and raised beds that can move with you to your next home. With a little planning, as well as the right products and plants, you can savor the pleasure of gardening without ticking off your landlord.
Before you plan anything permanent in the garden, like digging up sod or installing hardware for a vertical garden, make sure to consult with your landlord. Or go portable!
First, Choose the Correct Container
If you’ve ever visited Switzerland and admired the overflowing, geranium-laden windowboxes decorating apartment balconies, you know it’s possible to create a gorgeous garden in a small space. The trick is to choose the right containers and plants for the biggest impact, ones that not only look great but also align with your gardening goals.
Take a look at your outdoor spaces, and consider which portable plant containers work best within those spaces: windowboxes, hanging planters, raised beds, or patio pots.
Windowboxes
If you’re looking to add a bright burst of color to your balcony or porch, windowboxes make an excellent option. While some windowboxes require installing brackets for support, which you may need to clear with your landlord, others slip over railings without the need for drilling or permanent hardware. Look for options like Slat Windowboxes. Many of the newer windowbox styles are self-watering, eliminating guesswork about when to water your plants, and portable to move to the next location if needed.
Unless you’ve chosen a self-watering container, make sure to select containers with drainage holes to avoid standing water, which can lead to root rot in plants.
Hanging Planters
Hanging baskets offer an easy way to dress up a small space. From simple wire baskets with coir liners to self-watering styles, you’ll find plenty of choices to create lush, pretty plantings for growing flowers—and even food, like strawberries or lettuce. Wall Flower Hanging Planter Saddle Bags are designed to hang over railings and fences. Plus, hanging planters move seamlessly from balconies and porches to your next garden space. They also work beautifully when hung from a shepherd’s hook to brighten small gardens.
Raised Beds
If you want to grow your own food for garden-to-table meals, an elevated raised bed works well on balconies and patios. Self-watering options, like the Nest TruDrop Elevated Planter, offer a range of sizes and colors, letting you pick the perfect elevated bed that not only looks lovely but grows great food and flowers easily. The height makes planting and weeding a breeze, plus it fits nicely on balconies, patios, or any smaller space. An optional cover turns the planter into a mini greenhouse, protecting your seeds and plants from late freezes.
If you have a bit of yard space or a level gravel or paved area, traditional, ground-level raised beds work well for growing large amounts of food—or incorporating a pretty, practical mix of food and flowers. While some raised beds require a bit of construction, most are easily disassembled to move with you to your next home. Some raised beds require no construction, like Birdies Metal Raised Garden Beds. Available in a wide range of sizes and colors, these beds arrive ready to place in your garden space, fill with soil, and start planting immediately. Plus, because the beds are constructed from aluzine steel, they’ll last 20 years—and move easily with you to your next garden.
For easy-to-assemble, raised beds, Self-Watering Elevated Cedar Planter Box, 2’ x 4’ makes a good home for larger plants with deep root systems, like tomatoes and blueberry bushes. These no-bend garden boxes keep plants hydrated via a series of innovative, connected reservoirs that deliver water to roots on demand. They’re easy to disassemble and move, too, making them a practical option.
Patio Pots
Maybe you’d like to grow a mix of annual and perennial flowers to beautify your outdoor space, food for delicious garden-to-table meals, and shrubs to add structure, texture, and privacy. You can even add small trees to your outdoor living area to provide vertical interest, as well as habitat for wildlife. The best part is—you can grow all of your favorite plants in pretty pots, perfect for enjoying in your current rental space—and ideal for moving your garden to your next home. You’ll find a huge assortment of patio pots to meet all of your needs.
Whether you’re looking for highly decorative pots to add color and interest to your garden, sleek, modern containers that let your plants shine, or classic terra cotta pots to fill with your favorite herbs, you’ll find hundreds of options to suit your taste, space, and plants’ needs. For a high-quality, long-lasting container that’s good for the environment, consider Crescent Too® Circular Positive™ Planter Collection. Created with climate-positive material upcycled from landfill waste, these new containers feature classic Emma design planters and TruDrop Flex self-watering systems. The collection promotes sustainability while minimizing waste, perfect for growing a gorgeous garden in any space.
If you’d like to put a little privacy between you and your neighbors, consider the TruDrop Slat Self-Watering Containers From creating a vertical screen with upright evergreen shrubs to covering an added trellis with vining blooms, these containers make an elegant display when creating a private outdoor retreat. Not only do they feature the TruDrop self-watering feature, but the containers are food-safe—perfect for growing a hedge of blueberry bushes or lining your patio with towering tomatoes to harvest all summer. Or perhaps you yearn for a beautiful rose garden like your grandmother grew. Start collecting your favorite roses now by planting them in pots, and enjoy the sweet scent on your sunny balcony or patio—and continue to add to your collection wherever you move.
For an inexpensive, easy-to-install, highly portable, and reusable container, try a GrowTub. Made from non-woven geotextiles, the flexible container works well anywhere you want to grow. Ideal for growing edibles, it’s available in a wide variety of sizes. Choose a deep option for growing tall plants, like tomatoes, peas, and beans, or a shallow version for lettuce, kale, and edible flowers, like nasturtium. While it’s easy to move the entire container full of plants, it also folds flat for storage between seasons.
To create a pretty, cohesive look in your garden space, consider consistency.
Choose one style of container in a variety of sizes, grouping them to create an aesthetically pleasing patio, balcony, or garden space. Or use different styles of containers but in the same color. Too many differently colored containers in varying sizes can create a chaotic, instead of calming, garden.
Next, Pick a Perfect Place
While some plants, like caladium and hellebores, grow well in the shade, most flowering and fruiting plants need full sun for peak performance. Take a look at your outdoor spaces, and try to find the sunniest places possible, particularly if you want to grow beautiful blooms or abundant harvests of food.
Don’t despair if your balcony or patio sports shade—just look for plants that tolerate less sun. Hostas, begonias, coleus, impatiens, and many leafy green veggies, like lettuce, perform perfectly in part-sun to shade.
Fill your containers with high-quality potting mix, not garden soil.
You’ll want a rich, well-draining mix that supports healthy plant growth. Make sure to feed your plants throughout the growing season with a fertilizer appropriate for their needs. Because nutrients leach out of the soil during frequent container watering, good plant food helps replace needed nutrients for healthy plant growth. Find quality products when you shop our members.
Select Your Favorite Plants for Your Portable Garden
Now, for the best part: what plants will you pick? Choosing plants for your garden is such a pleasure—and a purely personal decision. Maybe you love the instant splash of color from impatiens. Perhaps you long for romantic blooms filled with fragrance. Maybe you want to grow enough food to feed your family. Whatever you choose, make sure to understand the plants’ growing needs—soil, sun, water, hardiness zone—so you can create and enjoy a delightful display of flowers, foliage, and food.
Choose a mix of plants to extend interest throughout the growing season: early spring blooms, long-lasting summer perennials, bright annuals for late summer color, and vibrant fall foliage.
To get you started, take a look at a few new introductions from National Garden Bureau members that are perfect as Portable Plants…
Annuals
For almost instant impact, adding annuals to your garden makes a great choice, both aesthetically and economically. They grow beautifully in whatever container you choose, plus annuals quickly brighten up spaces, adding gorgeous color throughout the growing season.
A few annual varieties to try include:
Perennials
For beautiful blooms that last for years, perennials make a great addition to container gardens. Not only are they long-lasting, but most perennials benefit from dividing every few years—giving you even more plants to add to your portable containers and garden.
Try these new perennials in your small-space garden:
Before installing an elevated raised bed or numerous large pots on a balcony, check with your landlord on weight restrictions. Large pots or elevated planters filled with soil are heavy—so ensure that your balcony can support the weight.
Shrubs
Shrubs might not be your first thought when choosing plants for a balcony or patio garden. However, with the introduction of compact varieties, you’ll find a spectacular selection of shrubs that grow gorgeously in containers. Some shrubs bloom beautifully, while others create a nice privacy hedge, keeping your business out of your neighbor’s sight and all portable!
A few new shrubs to consider include:
Edibles
Growing delicious food doesn’t require a big backyard or removing your landlord’s sod. With the right-sized container, you can grow most traditional veggies, fruits, and herbs—even towering indeterminate tomatoes. However, you’ll also find perfectly-sized, compact plants that grow great harvests—while looking lovely on your balcony, patio, or porch, too.
Some of the new edible varieties to consider include:
Are you ready to create a beautiful garden filled with fabulous fresh food, flowers, and foliage—one that can move with you to your next home?
You’ll adore relaxing in your lush, lovely space and harvesting delicious homegrown ingredients for garden-to-table meals from your perfectly portable garden.
Do you know that National Garden Bureau members include the most innovative companies that provide perfect portable containers, as well as breeders and distributors of lush, lovely, productive plants for your gardening success?
Whether you’ve signed a long-term lease or plan to rent for just a bit, you can create a beautiful garden space with the products and plants available from National Garden Bureau members.
About National Garden Bureau
Founded more than 100 years ago, the National Garden Bureau educates, inspires, and motivates people to grow home gardens. National Garden Bureau members are horticultural experts, and the information shared with you comes directly from these experts to ensure your gardening success.
“This post is provided as an educational/inspirational service of the National Garden Bureau and our members. Please credit and link to National Garden Bureau and author member when using all or parts of this article.”
