Vertical gardens make drab, unattractive walls come alive with beauty and style.

Growing up has become a hot trend, especially among city dwellers who have little or no garden space to work with.

You can choose a vertical garden that provides you with fruits and vegetables, one for totally decorative purposes or one that offers a gorgeous array of blooming flowers for the structure or to cut and take indoors.

Outdoor vertical gardens can grace an old fence, garage wall, trellis or other mediums, while an indoor wall can be a focal point for a decorative wall or area. For either type of garden you’ll have to take into consideration the elements that plants will be exposed to.

You can choose almost any plants for indoors as you can in an outdoor environment, provided it has a great watering and light system. Hydroponic growing systems are popular and perfect for an indoor garden space and you can use stackable pots or specially designed structures in extremely small spaces.

If you’re thinking of having an outdoor vertical garden, you’ll need to consider the elements such as wind and rain, besides the growing medium such as a fence or wall, wood or brick and amount of work it will take to get started.

After you’ve created the perfect space for your growing up garden, you’re ready to choose the plants that will be best suited for the space. Choose from almost any type of plant you can imagine including trees, vines, vegetables and flowers. Whatever your heart desires in any type of garden, you can achieve in a vertical garden.

Maintenance issues with a vertical garden are minor compared with the problems you face in a traditional, horizontal garden. You can harvest fruits and vegetables at eye level, twine branches to create a beautiful design and have much less soil preparation and other problems you might face with growing plants close together and in soil.

More city architects are taking vertical gardening to new “heights” by considering how they can incorporate them in urban environments of concrete and glass. New air filtering systems are using the idea of indoor vertical gardens as a way to purify air for inhabitants and more gardeners are finding ways to feed more people with growing fruits and vegetables on structures designed for plants.

For centuries, inspired gardeners in urban settings have been growing plants on trellises, fences and in pots. Every possible space is utilized in some areas of the world for feeding overflowing populations and it’s only natural that growing up would become an answer that works.

There are dozens of beautiful photos of vertical gardens, both indoors and out, online. You can also find enough information to get you started on your own vertical garden and experience “growing up” as a way to have a beautiful garden with half the upkeep.