Name: Susie
Location: Carroll Gardens
Size: 15x20
Favorite Resource: & my local Ace Hardware
Pitch:
This is my first attempt at a garden. I moved to NYC a year ago and was lucky enough to get an apartment with an adjacent roof space. It's accessible by climbing out of a window in my living room. Now that I am out of school with some time on my hands, I was excited about moving on from houseplants to a container garden... [more below]
This roof space (about 15'x20') has been a great laboratory, especially with the ivy-covered brick backdrop that was growing when I moved in. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to have a garden out there, but so far no one's said anything.
I inherited the wooden barrel planter with the apartment. All other
containers were found on the sidewalks during several scouting trips on evenings before trash day. I've got a couple of loose drawers that I drilled drain holes in the bottom of and filled with soil, as well as a discarded birdcage that works great for climbing plants.
I'm sorry I cant list off all of the flowers I have - I'm not even
sure what I have growing. Last fall I bought some shrubs at an
end-of-season sale at Lowes, and they survived the winter. A couple of flats of things were ordered from a fund raiser for the Cobble Hill Children's group. Then I went to my local Ace Hardware, which has a great garden section, and bought pretty much one of annual they had.
Some things have survived -- some things haven't. Urban gardening is
much more difficult than I expected, but I've definitely learned a lot! I'm hoping my thumb will get greener as I go.
Thanks! Susie
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I love the drawer as planter idea.
Looks great! I like the creative containers for plants. I had my husband carry home a small bookcase that was on the street which we've laid flat and planted cosmos and grape tomatoes.
thanks for the nice comments!
a bit of advice if anyone else wants to try drawers-as-planters: make sure the drawers are pretty deep. the ones I have are pretty shallow -- so I only have about 3 or 4" inches of dirt. That doesn't give the plants much room for roots, and they dry out fast and need watering more often than deeper pots.
Hi my name is jurell and Im an intern at an Ad agency in N.Y and where trying to find out more about the urban gardeners in the city. From looking and reading about your garden it seems just perfect. If you would like to learn more about what where trying to do you can email me at jurell2136@hotmail.com thank you.
Love the variety of found-planters; your fearless experimentation will only make it better and better as you continue to learn and grow. Nice work!