Backyard Landscaping Three Stories Up? You Bet Your Condo!
by Wendy Croix
wendy.croix@homeimprovementideas.net
Home Improvement Ideas Columnist
Got house envy? Feel trapped inside your condo or townhouse while home owners everywhere are mowing their grass and plucking home-grown tomatoes from the vine? It's time you exchanged that green envy for some backyard green. Stow the junk, free your balcony, and turn it into a backyard living space.
Pick a theme and a color scheme
A small garden needs a focus. My front balcony garden, the Green Buddha Garden, does indeed have a green Buddha in it. The chair and glider are green, as are the twenty-one pots in assorted sizes. Even the windchime is green. Though my space is limited, and my balcony the standard dogleg, the unified color scheme makes the space feel larger. If green's too cool for you, try sunny clay and redwood for warmth.
Backyard landscaping with pot gardening
Pick a color scheme for your plants. My green garden's filled with red plants--huge hanging pots of red petunias. A half dozen pots of red impatiens mix with red leaf coleus and red yarrow. For accent colors, I'm using white and pink this year--tall foxgloves flank my startlingly white concrete birdbath, and pansies spill out of a planter box above it. Though I have a southern exposure, my balcony is covered. The shaded niche of my dogleg is filled by a giant Virginia creeper. If you're stuck behind a wall in a dark first floor courtyard, paint the inside of your privacy fence white. Add a bright brass sun or colorful gazing ball. Fix window box planters along the top of your fence and grow impatiens and hostas.
Backyard living
In the summer, I spend more time in my third floor backyard garden than my living room. I write there, I entertain friends there, I unwind and watch the sunset there. Backyard living three stories up? You bet. And the bonus? If you want to refinance, have you home appraised in the summer when your backyard landscaping's spectacular--your property value will soar.
About the Author
Wendy Croix, Ph.D. is a creative writer, freelancer, and self-confessed home improvement junkie. She's also a professor with more than twenty years’ experience in the field of education.
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