In today’s post we’re going to help you really dig into this concept of gutter gardening simply because gutter gardening is more than a creative curiosity. In fact, gutter gardens can provide some real advantages that other types of gardens don’t.

Gutter Gardens Save Space

Gutter gardens can create “vertical gardens,” which help you take advantage of small spaces. This is an especially good solution for people who don’t have much yard space because they live in an apartment, condo, or duplex.

Each garden “row” is simply mounted and stacked one on the other on some available bit of wall, siding, window, or fence space, depending on your set-up. You have to choose plants that have a good tolerance for shallow soil, but that still opens you up to a wide variety of vegetables, herbs, and decorative options.

Vertical gardens can be grown indoors as well as outdoors. You would simply need to hang the appropriate indoor garden lighting over your vertical gutter garden.

The blog, Hands Occupied, devoted an entire post to showing readers how to create a step-by-step gutter garden. They actually used aluminum gutters for theirs.

Note that you need to be sure to purchase end caps for each gutter. This will keep your plants and your soil inside of the system. You usually need to drill small holes in the bottom of the gutter to allow for proper drainage. You should also maintain at least one foot between each level as plants do need enough space to grow.

This particular blog post did not cover lighting, but if you wanted you could simply hang the light overhead, or you could create another gutter row specifically designed to hold clip-on indoor gardening lamps. Do this in your kitchen and you could have fresh herbs all year long.

Gutters Make Fantastic Irrigation Systems

There are dozens of different ways to use gutters as irrigation systems. They can even be used in pure hydroponic gardening.

However, they do perfectly fine with soil gardens too. Check out this video to see the kinds of fantastic results that you can achieve with some gutters and some 5 gallon buckets.

If you want a step-by-step guide to creating this kind of self-watering garden you can view this video:

There’s virtually no limit to what you can do if you’re willing to use your imagination when it comes to rain gutters. Of course, you don’t want to forget to update and maintain the actual gutters that protect your home.

Gutters help you avoid costly repairs by re-directing the flow of water from your home. While we can’t help you set up your gutter garden we can give you a free estimate on more traditional uses for gutters, just as we’ve done for homeowners in Wesley Chapel, Land O’Lakes, New Port Richey and the rest of the Tampa area. Give us a call today!