How To Make A Modular Garden

Modular gardens are all the rage these days. They consist of various modules made of wooden boards, shelving and boxes placed on the horizontal and vertical planes. Not only do they allow you to maximise the sunlight your plants get, but they also allow you to use your garden for a better variety of things. When friends come over, you can effectively “put away” your garden to create the most space possible. Or, you can just change things around any time you feel like it - the possibilities are endless with a modular garden.

Make a vertical modular garden

Want to save space for your kids to play in the garden but still want to grow plenty of vegetables, flowers and herbs? If so, a modular vertical garden will give you the best of both worlds.

The first step is to build or find some shelves on which to put your planter boxes. Go for a light yet durable material that’s easy to move around. Michael on Instructables uses cedar fence pickets.

Then, construct or choose your planters. You’ll need something deep enough for your selected plants’ root systems that can also hook onto or sit upon the rungs of the shelves. You may be able to attach hooks onto your existing pots, while you can place heavier planters directly on the shelves.

Make a portable raised bed

Raised beds are the ultimate convenient gardening solution. Not only do raised beds allow easier access to your vegetable patch, but they also make for easier picking, maintenance, and control. However, the raised bed has just one fatal flaw - its massive size. Stuck in the middle of the garden, your raised bed has no opportunity to capitalise on that precious sunlight that moves around the ground or that cosy spot up against the wall.

Whereas if your raised bed were smaller and more portable, you could move it into the greenhouse when the weather grows harsh.

One way to make your raised beds more portable is to build them smaller. Keep them just as deep, but make them half the size. Make sure to add a base you can put wheels on, or else lift your raised bed onto a skateboard or plant pot moving tool if you’ll be moving your raised bed less frequently.

You could also use particularly large or deep wheeled pots as raised beds. These pots are a great ready-made solution.

Use pots

As your houseplants grow more extensive, you probably repot them into more suitable containers, right? Well, why not just keep your plants in such containers in the garden, too? Smaller pots can be kept on old tea trays or baking trays for ease of moving, while you can group larger pots in a wheelbarrow or old pram.

You don't have to stick to just pots, either - take this opportunity to get creative! An old children's bike makes a great portable plant container. Bonus points if it still has its basket or doll seat. Old boots are another attractive planting option. You could even plant flowers in an old cracked bowl since this means the flowers still get drainage.

Use layers

A layered garden is a great way to keep plants that don’t get along separate from each other and prevent plants from encroaching on your space. As plants grow and need more space, you can rearrange the partitions to offer more. Or, as other plants come to require different environmental conditions throughout the year, you can reposition them throughout the garden with ease.

This plastic garden edging allows you to keep your lawn separate from your flowerbed or path, for example, without soil or stones spilling over.

*Collaborative post