Are you planning your garden or adjusting your existing 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.
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.
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.
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 Choices: Vining plants (such as cucumbers, beans), trailing flowers, roses, succulents.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 Choices: Anything you want to grow, including a variety of vegetables, fruits, and flowers based on community preferences.
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 Choices: Root vegetables, herbs, lettuces, dwarf fruit trees.
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 Choices: Basil, rosemary, thyme, mint, parsley, cilantro.
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 Choices: Spider plants, pothos, succulents, peace lilies, herbs, ferns.
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 Choices: Compact varieties of vegetables, herbs, dwarf fruit trees, hanging plants.
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 Choices: Moss, ornamental grasses, bamboo, Japanese maples, bonsai trees.
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 Choices: Succulents, cacti, ornamental grasses, native drought-tolerant plants.
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 Choices: Aloe vera, jade plants, Echeveria, sedums, agave.
There are so many different styles of gardens, you're sure to find the right type for you and your gardening aspirations. Selecting the right seeds and plants for your chosen garden type will ensure a successful and fulfilling gardening experience.
Do you have a garden style that works well for you but isn't on our list? Share it with us on social media. We'll add it to our list. You just might inspire the next generation of gardener! Facebook Instagram
