Even if you have a limited residential lot you can still pursue gardening through a vertical garden. There are many ways of doing this, but I find the bottle tower a more practical choice. For one, the structure is very compact. You are simply stacking bottles on top of one another and each bottle is planted. You can have as many towers as space allowed. Its possible to have 800 plants in just 3 square meters of available land.
On top of that, it is inexpensive as it is built mainly with recycled water/soda plastic bottles. The design also allows easy watering. You only need to water the topmost bottle and it naturally drips downward.
There are several ways of building a bottle tower. I’ve selected these two videos as they have very good methods.
In this video, the cap is used to keep the top bottle in place making it a more sturdy structure, plus it is using a hose which makes watering even more convenient.
In the video, it is using a trellis to support the tower so it will not fall or collapse. It also incorporates a funnel, a feature I find useful. I can fill it regularly with compost or cow dung, so as the water drips it provides the plants a steady supply of fresh nutrients. I’ll add an empty bottle at the bottom with no holes in the cap to catch any excess water and recycle it.
If done right you can have a beautiful vertical garden like this school project in Israel.
I want to plant mine with veggies and fruit-bearing plants like strawberry. If you get creative enough, bottle towers aren’t limited to outside plots, you can place them indoors too.
What I have in mind, is using a set of self-supporting trellises as a divider between the living room and dining room. The trellis is made of a rust-proof aluminum frame with lots of bottle towers full of beneficial indoor plants. These plants produce a steady supply of cool fresh air. There are varieties that aid air purification by absorbing harmful chemicals like formaldehyde and benzene which are present in paints and cleaning agents. Some species even release scents that help you relax like jasmine and lavender, making them ideal in the bedroom.
You can place an indoor fountain between two bottle towers to provide humidity for the plants and to cool air. To distribute the fresh air around the room, install a ceiling fan on top of the divider. Finally, to mimic sunlight, add an LED grow light on the ceiling fan.
This idea turns the ordinary divider into a natural air conditioner that cools down the house during summer. Or like the guy who placed hanging bottle garden on the windows as shown on the video below.
To protect plants from pests, use safe and homemade pesticides. Use banana fruit or aloe vera as a plant rooting agent.
Indoor plants are normally ornamental but as mentioned above plants are more than just decoration. Choose green living, its good.
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