The 5 Most Common Vertical Gardening Challenges, Solved

When you hear the word ‘garden,’ what comes to mind? Large lawns, sprawling horizontal spaces, meticulously landscaped? Let’s face it, the typical sweeping gardens aren’t often possible to create in cities chock full of glass buildings and concrete. Yet, research shows urban green spaces are crucial for protecting biodiversity, improving environmental conditions, and helping city folks connect with nature. 

But if urban gardens are so great, shouldn’t we be seeing more of them? Sadly, factors like space, time, effort, and gardening know-how get in the way of urban greening.

Enter vertical gardening. With vertical garden systems you can have a tranquil, green sanctuary in the tiniest of spaces. However, this unique way of gardening can come with its fair share of challenges. That’s what this blog is all about.

What is a Vertical Garden? 

Vertical gardening is a unique way of gardening that allows you to tap into vertical spaces to grow fragrant herbs, colourful flowers, and fruits and vegetables. Walls, towers, nets, or any vertical frame can be used to transform your balcony or backyard into a lush, thriving space.

When done correctly, vertical gardens quickly become homes to healthy plants, birds, and bees, without you having to bend and stoop to keep it ship shape. While it might sound like a modern concept, it’s actually an ancient practice whose origins can be traced all the way back to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon! 

How are Typical Vertical Gardening Systems Built?

A vertical garden typically features a stable structure that allows plants to grow naturally. The structure can be anything - a fence, railing, wall, or even a PVC pipe structure - as long as it is solid, stable, and in a spot that receives the right amount of sunlight. Once you have that sorted, you’ll need the right planters.

Many make the mistake of plunging into vertical gardening without the right wall planter. Mainly because it’s easy to find tons of guides floating online to help you fashion yourself ‘DIY’ planters out of wood, grow bags, and even fabric shoe hangers! Granted, the idea of a DIY wall planter sounds appealing, but they’re often not the best choice for the plants. For example, wooden pallets full of soil, plants, and water might get too heavy to stay anchored to a wall. They could also be problematic for a balcony with weight restrictions. 

What about grow bags and shoe hangers? They sure look cute but are made from cloth, which puts them in the not-so-durable category. And if the shoe hanger is made from flimsy plastic, there’s a risk of chemicals leaching into the soil. With glass or terracotta wall planters, watering becomes a major concern. 

Troubleshooting the Top Five Vertical Garden Challenges With Eggologic

Because it’s so different from traditional gardening, vertical gardening has its unique set of issues. That’s why we researched, tested, and reached out to experts to make sure that our pods will never have you worrying about these:

#1 Watering issues

While overwatering causes root rot and mould growth, underwatering leads to wilting and nutrient loss - and these issues can look surprisingly similar in plants above the soil. That means both issues are commonly found with typical vertical gardens because the closed system can make it challenging to know what your plants need.

With the Eggologic Planter Pods, we included an integrated drainage port and multiple openings to allow excess water to escape. So, you can water your plants deeply until excess water starts running out of drainage holes. This makes it easier to put your vertical plants on a watering schedule - instead of trying to guess what might be happening inside the pods.

#2 Poor aeration

Soil aeration is an upside of a horizontal outdoor garden where worms and microorganisms dig the soil, allowing oxygen to reach the roots. This is typically missing in vertical gardens. The soil can become compact and need you to do some manual aeration and more frequent soil changes that your plants may not love.

Eggologic Planter Pods feature multiple aeration openings within the insert to give your plants better aeration. The aerated soil, together with the ability to water deeply without leaving standing water allows your plant’s roots to grow more naturally, boosting their health and growth. 

#3 Limited plant options

Wall planters should be deep enough to allow roots to grow and spread out. Sadly, most vertical gardening planters fall short. They’re very cute - but they only hold a little bit of soil which means you can’t plant anything with robust roots.

We designed our Garden Pods with botanists to make sure they support a huge variety of plants. Our Planter Pods are perfect for holding the roots for even some taproot flowers, small herbs, and vining plants and our Trellis Pods are just what you need to help your climbers thrive.

#4 Most vertical gardening systems are tricky to install

When you start shopping for vertical gardening systems, they are often just easy-on-the-eyes planters with little else to offer. They can be complex to build out of the box, and the DIY versions often need tools you don’t have handy, leaving you with a cobbled together mish-mash of stuff hanging on your wall (no judgement if that’s the look you’re going for).

In sharp contrast, an Eggologic Pod system is carefully engineered to be strong, weatherproof, simple to install, and beautiful to look at. 

For example, the Planter Pod. You start by mounting the outer shell’s back with one (yes ONE) mounting screw. Then you add the soil seed mixture to the insert and slide it into the mounted back. Then, you just snap the front shell into its place!

What’s more, the front-facing shells are easily interchangeable if you’re looking to zhuzh up things a bit with one of the other pods.

#5 Not ideal for overwintering

Winter can be a tricky stretch because you find yourself wondering how to protect your plants - or if your outdoor baskets can survive the cold. Most of the time outdoor potted plants don’t do well in the cold because their roots aren’t protected well enough.

But if you’re thinking of planting something hardy enough to withstand the chill or frost in your vertical garden, then you’ll be glad to know that our pod’s outer shell is made from robust and weather-resilient HDPE resin. Inside, there’s an extra insulating layer to protect roots from the freeze/thaw song and dance.

Don’t want to leave the plants outdoors? No problem! Moving plants indoors or to a warmer spot is incredibly easy. All you need to do is remove the inner shell of the pod and bring it inside. It sits flat on the ground so you can treat it like any other indoor pot until the final spring thaw.

Rewilding Urban Areas With Eggologic

Eggologic pods are much more than just homes for your plants. They can help rewild the cities and make them biodiverse hubs teeming with native plant species, pollinators, and more! All we need are eco-conscious folks like you and a wall surface in your outdoor space to bring nature back into cities.

Whether you want to grow climbers, hardy perennials, or delicate herbs, we’ve got a planter pod for you.

Click Here to See All of Our Garden Pods