The sweet relief of spring weather is an irresistible draw to spend as much time as possible outside. While parks and neighborhood walks are fun ways to see new scenery, there’s nothing like having a beautiful outdoor space to enjoy just a step outside the comfort of your own home! Today, we’re going to look ways to enhance one of the smallest possible outdoor spaces: the apartment balcony upgrade.
Unique Benefits:
One nice aspect to balconies is that they are a very contained space, which makes a balcony upgrade easier. Instead of a big, multi-step landscaping project, upgrading your balcony space can be simple and affordable!
Balcony spaces are also much easier to take care of on a regular basis. Unlike a yard, where as soon as you feel like you’ve finished mowing or trimming, you have to start over, balconies are much easier to maintain.
Unique Challenges:
Unfortunately, there is usually not much variation in exposure to the elements for balconies. Depending on which direction your balcony faces and whether or not there are trees or other buildings nearby, you probably either deal with unrelenting sunlight or a ton of shade. This can make selecting the right plants a bit tricky.
Space can also be an issue for balconies. While it is nice to not have to keep up with a lot of plants, you also have to scale your expectations to what is available to you. For example, most balconies probably don’t have enough room for seven pots of flowers, a small veggie garden, a potted tree, a bird bath, and an outdoor couch and table.
What We Did With Our Space:
Our little balcony is three stories up, and faces out into a little grassy courtyard made by the surrounding apartment buildings. There is also a big, beautiful live oak right outside our balcony, so it feels a little bit like living in a tree house! We love it.
Here is our “Before” picture:
Starting with visible green outside makes things a lot easier, but we were eager to make our space comfortable and full of plants on the inside, too!
Comfy chairs and throw pillows made for inviting seating.
The little outdoor rug really made it feel like an intentional seating area, though ($16 at Target!!).
Our porch is VERY shady, which limited our plant selection, as most plant nurseries in our area cater more towards plants that can thrive in the Texas sun. We found that Snake Plant, Calla Lilly, Coleus, and Schefflera (or Umbrella Plant) work perfectly for indoors or the balcony, though!
We also really wanted to add some height and color, and found these beautiful Fuchsia hanging baskets at Home Depot:
These gorgeous flowering plants only need a bit of sun, and they make a dramatic impact! One big plus is that hummingbirds also love them!
When we hung the Fuchsia baskets, they felt a little high, and it was harder to see the flowers and water them. We quickly thought of a solution: our Spiral Hummingbird Feeders! Did you know that you can hang a flower basket that weighs up to 35 pounds on our Four Station Spiral Feeders? They are designed with a hook on each end, and a strong support rod down the middle. It was the perfect solution!
Here is the finished result of our balcony upgrade:
