INTRODUCTION
Sunlight is key to every plant’s growth; no plant can survive without it. Even Shade-loving plants need limited sunlight or grow light to survive. Sunlight is a key ingredient for photosynthesis, creating glucose (plant food). This is especially true of places like the Balcony, which must be designed carefully for sun-loving plants in high-intensity sun exposure areas and shade-loving plants in less intense sunlight areas.
Knowing the sunlight intensity and sun exposure in every direction and season helps you set up a perfect Balcony Garden that thrives. Setting a garden on a balcony is an art combined with brainstorming, what I mean by brainstorming is you need to analyse the area typically it’s not gonna that spacious most of the time.
So, planning a garden with limited space includes space-saving plants and pots, utilizing every possible area for plants and making it cosier with some sitting areas to spend quality time there. The behind Balcony makeover is creating a greenery spot for relaxation and growing your favourite plants.
Balcony makeover is not only for gardeners or plant enthusiasts it is also for interior-loving people and people who love to keep their spaces clean and aesthetic. In this blog post, we gonna learn about light challenges faced on the balcony and how to optimize the sunlight and suitable plants for balcony light availability.
Contents
- 1 1. COMMON BALCONY SUNLIGHT CHALLENGES FOR CONTAINER GARDENS
- 2 2. HOW TO ASSESS YOUR BALCONY’S SUNLIGHT FOR OPTIMAL CONTAINER PLACEMENT
- 3 3. CHOOSING THE RIGHT PLANTS FOR YOUR BALCONY’S LIGHT CONDITIONS
- 4 4. MAXIMISING SUNLIGHT FOR YOUR BALCONY CONTAINER GARDEN
- 5 5. MANAGING TOO MUCH SUNLIGHT ON YOUR BALCONY
- 6 CONCLUSION
1. COMMON BALCONY SUNLIGHT CHALLENGES FOR CONTAINER GARDENS
Limited Sunlight Exposure
Balconies in urban areas have an issue of sunlight barriers caused by nearby tall buildings, walls and neighbourhood balconies. Seasons change the sun’s angle and duration. These factors affect proper sunlight availability on the balcony. To solve all these problems, you have to identify sun exposure and sun path.
Shadows and Uneven light distribution
The shadows created by nearby buildings or tall plants, walls and balcony railings are some factors you don’t have any control over. Instead of worrying about these factors identify the sun exposure of the balcony by the above methods, and utilize the space for plants.
While planning the balcony area, choose shaded areas for sitting or any furniture placement. Leave the sun exposure areas free for plant arrangement. Utilize vertical areas like ceiling hooks for hanging baskets, sun exposure walls for vertical planters and railings for railing planters. Elevating the plants with stands to get sunlight is also helpful.
Seasonal Light Variations
In summer and spring, you might face high-intense sunlight and your plant might face heat stress, especially in south-facing balconies. At those times you can use garden shade, move containers to shaded areas and follow proper watering is helps to save the plant and your mental peace.
In winter and monsoon, the problems gonna be in contrast, dropping temperatures create problems in the upper layer of soil and plants. At those times try to water only the dry soil, using warm light and grow lights to give some light to survive. Adding mulch and adopting seasonal-based care is useful.
Along with these season-based changes, you can shift the container or change the setup a little based on seasonal sunlight shifts.
2. HOW TO ASSESS YOUR BALCONY’S SUNLIGHT FOR OPTIMAL CONTAINER PLACEMENT
Mapping the Sun’s Path
To identify the sun’s path, you have to monitor the sun’s angle and duration from 6 am to 6 pm. You can check the initial timing of 6 am – 9 pm for morning warmer sunlight, mid-day intense sunlight from 12 am – 3 pm and the evening sunlight from 3 pm – 6 pm. But taking pictures or taking notes of sunlight hours and angles in the balcony helps you to design the balcony. Knowing this sun exposure helps you to design the balcony plant arrangement.
Balcony Orientation and Light Exposure
The sun exposure is determined by facing the direction of the balcony, and the nearby buildings. Usually, south balconies receive more 7 hours of sunlight (direct sunlight) throughout the year, east-facing balconies receive warmer sunlight for 3-6 hours (partial sunlight), west-facing balconies receive high-intense direct sunlight for 3-6 hours from afternoon to evening and the north-facing balconies receive less than 3 hours sun and remain shade for the day.
3. CHOOSING THE RIGHT PLANTS FOR YOUR BALCONY’S LIGHT CONDITIONS
Selecting Plants Based on Light Needs
In south-facing balconies, you can grow edible plants and herbs. For east-facing balconies, you can grow flowers and leafy greens. For west-facing balconies the sunlight intensity is higher so choose heat-tolerant plants. For north-facing balconies choose shade-loving plants.
Apart from directions you can identify sun exposure based on sunlight duration.
SUNLIGHT TYPE | DURATION | IDEAL PLANT TYPES |
Full Sun | 6-8 hours | Edibles, succulents, heat-tolerant |
Partial Sun | 4-6 hours | |
Partial Shade | 2-4 hours | Houseplants |
Dappled Sunlight | Pass through tall trees or obstacles (less intense) | Shade-tolerant plants, Foliage |
Full Shade | Less than 2 hours |
Edible vs Ornamental Balcony Gardens
There are two types of Balcony Gardeners one wants to utilize a balcony as an Edible Garden and the other is to make a cozy spot with Ornamental plants aka not edible plants.
For Edible Gardeners, you can plan your garden based on sunlight. Full sun areas are optimal for fruiting plants, Partial sun or shade areas are ideal for leafy greens and drought-tolerant herbs, and the shade areas are for microgreens and shade-tolerant herbs.
Plant shallow-rooted herbs and leafy green in small pots like vertical planters and utilise bigger spaces for veggies and fruit plants with the help of window planters and rectangular planter boxes.
FULL SUN | PARTIAL SUN/SHADE | LOW-LIGHT |
Arugula (microgreens) | ||
Fenugreek (microgreens) | ||
Mustard greens (microgreens) | ||
For Ornamental gardeners, you create a space more for relaxing so including comfortable furnishing, warm lights and home decor items to keep the space more relaxed. Ornamental plants are natural air purifiers so you can get a calm feel when you enter a balcony garden with ornamental plants.
For ornamental plants, containers need to be functional and thematic as well choosing elegant ceramic pots and pots that gonna match with home decor is important. Instead of using all floor space for plants, try to utilize vertical space with vertical planters and hanging baskets to keep the floor space for sitting areas.
FULL SUN | PARTIAL SUN/SHADE | FULL SHADE |
Dichondra | ||
4. MAXIMISING SUNLIGHT FOR YOUR BALCONY CONTAINER GARDEN
Every balcony is different so their light availability., after identifying the sun exposure, plant types that are opted for that light and the balcony space you might have some sunlight like limited light access so opt for the below steps that are suitable for your Balcony helps you to get the maximum sunlight your plant need. Read on
Optimising Plant Placement
Container gardening has the flexibility to move the containers, so you can easily move the containers to get the most sunlight. And you can rotate plant pots according to seasonal changes and sunlight path.
Morning 6 am – 9 am you get warmer sunlight from the east side (partial shade) ideal for flowering plants and herbs. The south side (full sun) receives 6-7 hours of direct sunlight ideal for sun-loving plants like edible plants, fruits and succulents. The west side (partial sun) gets 3 hours of high-intense sunlight from 3 pm – 6 pm ideal for heat-tolerant plants. Usually north side (full-shade receives less than 2 hours of sunlight suitable for shade-loving plants.
Multi-Level Plant Stands and Shelves
There are different kinds of plant stands & shelves available in the marketplace, these plant stands and shelves not only help to get the maximum sunlight but also help you to utilise the vertical space of your Balcony. You can showcase your Ornamental plants on these shelves to elevate the home decor.
Using plant stands near railings elevates the plant height to get the maximum sunlight and makes cleaning easier. Tier plant stands showcase the plants and are ideal for one wall corner (e.g. south-facing balcony has east and west walls). Using a plant stand with a pot display helps to showcase and is ideal for wall corners.
You can use an individual plant stand for a single-plant display if you want to avoid overcrowding. Multi-tier metal stands are a great choice for showcasing plants. Metal plant stands with hooker plant pots and hanging pot holders.
Reflect Light to Boost Plant Growth
Apart from plant arrangement and plant elevation using plant stands you can maximise sunlight by using reflective surfaces. Placing containers near reflective surfaces like white-painted walls, mirrors reflect the sunlight to the nearby plant pots.
Using light-coloured pots also reflects the sunlight to the nearby pots. Using Acrylic mirror sheets on the opposite side of fewer sunlight walls (placing acrylic mirror sheets on the south side to reflect the sunlight to the north). Also, repurpose the old mirrors around the container to reflect the sunlight. DIY old DVDs and CDs to create reflective surfaces to maximise the sunlight.
5. MANAGING TOO MUCH SUNLIGHT ON YOUR BALCONY
In the above paragraph, we learned about how to maximise the sunlight for balconies, now you going to learn about how to manage too much sunlight on your balcony. It happens for south-facing balconies in heatwave summer. And high-intense sunlight in west-facing balconies.
Signs of Overexposure in Container Plants
The common signs of overexposure to sunlight are scorched or burnt leaves, a crispy brown edges. Leaf curling is a sign of a plant’s struggle to conserve moisture. Wilted leaves are the signs of excess sun exposure. Bleached or faded leaves are signs of chlorophyll damage.
Sun stress also causes stunted growth or smaller leaves. Dry and cracked soil also indicates excess heat. Premature fruit and flower falling is a sign of heat stress. Leaves may fall off as a defence mechanism to reduce water loss because of heat stress.
Shade Solutions for Hot Balconies
- Shade clothing or Netting is commonly used to protect sun’s heat waves in balconies, you can use them as curtains or blinds.
- Using Bamboo Blinds is not only for protecting heat waves in the afternoon sun but can be used as shade covers for balconies.
- To create Natural Shades, you can grow vining plants near railings and these plants create dappled sunlight and reduce heat waves.
- Along with shade solutions adapt watering techniques in summer.
6. CREATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR CHALLENGING BALCONY SPACES
Balconies have some common challenges like limited light, smaller space and hard-to-clean garden space. The below-listed ideas help to solve these common balcony garden problems.
Using Grow Lights to Supplement Sunlight
Balconies without proper sunlight or less than 2 hours of sunlight make it hard to grow any kind of plants. This not only happens in north-facing balconies, but balconies near tall buildings also face light barriers. In Urban living it is hard to find balconies with proper sunlight, to handle this situation you can adopt Grow Light.
Instead of using focus Grow lights you can use Led Grow Lights to get the wide lighting for plants in the balcony. Replacing normal lights with Grow lights bulb is also helpful. For corners, you can set a focus light with a display plant stand.
Vertical Gardening for Limited Space and Sun
When you only have a particular corner or spot on the balcony that receives sunlight or you’ve very limited floor space on the balcony, this vertical gardening is for you. Using vertical planters, wall-mounted planters in the wall, hook planters in window grills and balcony grills, using stackable pots in corners.
These different kind of vertical planters helps you to utilise the limited balcony space for different balconies. Analyse the balcony and choose the pot type to choose the best pot.
Portable containers for flexibility
Choosing lightweight pot material for balconies benefits in multiple ways. Easy to move and lightweight pot avoids over-weighing the balcony to avoid cracks. These containers are easy to move so you can relocate plant pots based on seasonal sunlight changes and easy to rearrange the entire balcony. Plastic pots, fabric Grow bags and Linea pots are lightweight pots.
CONCLUSION
Creating a balcony garden is a blend of creative ideas and enthusiasm for gardening. I appreciate the idea of creating a balcony garden, with the help of the above paragraphs you can identify sunlight needs and arrange the plants based on sunlight and choosing plants based on sunlight.
Along with these, you can get ideas about utilising vertical space based on sunlight, and ideas for alternative sunlight. This blog helps you to overcome balcony garden struggles. You can try different plant placements and plant types on your balcony to boost up your creative side and home decor.
Check out my website mypotsgarden.com, to learn more about container gardening tips and guides for successful gardening. And let me know your Balcony Garden problems in the comment section and get free solutions.
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