When you live in an urban area, bits of greenery can be hard to come by — but vertical gardens offer a wonderful way to refresh your living space, inside and out. From boosting privacy to enhancing small outdoor areas, here are 10 reasons to love this surprisingly versatile garden feature. Peter Landers Photography 1. Vertical gardens create an invitation to the outdoors. Planting a vibrant vertical garden in an outdoor room that’s visible from inside the home is a wonderful way to encourage indoor-outdoor flow. The lush foliage beckons you outside, making even a small routine (like drinking your morning coffee) more likely to happen in the fresh air. Kerr Construction 2. Vertical gardens add life to urban exteriors. An exterior wall done top to bottom in vertical plantings is delightfully unexpected — just imagine walking home along a row of plain brick and stucco facades and happening upon this living wall of green. Your visitors will certainly never have trouble finding your house! Aleck Wilson Architects 3. Vertical gardens can stand in for art. When framed and hung on the wall, a vertical garden can become a one-of-a-kind display that will get guests talking. Succulents with a sculptural shape, or those with delicate, trailing tendrils, are especially well suited to this application. Marylou Sobel Interior Design 4. Vertical gardens can disguise a bland wall. A small patio hemmed in by high walls can feel limiting, especially if the walls surrounding it are less than attractive. Consider adding a vertical garden for a double-duty solution: With row upon row of plants stretching as far as the eye can see, it doesn’t just cover up the offending wall, it creates a focal point. Alex Maguire Photography 5. Vertical gardens let you create your own green view. Lackluster view? Plant a vertical garden outside your window to make an eye-pleasing one. If too-close neighbors are an issue, consider hiring a pro to construct a support for a vertical garden that “floats” in front of your windows, sheltering your view. Jeffrey Erb Landscape Design 6. Vertical gardens make a small outdoor space feel more expansive. Plants blur boundaries along fence lines, creating a more open feeling in this walled city garden. Try adding a mixture of potted plants, greenery in large planters and vertical plantings to create layers of lush green in your own urban yard. Daedalus Design Build 7. Vertical gardens can form a living privacy screen. Looking for something a bit different from the usual fence or hedge to give your outdoor space a more private feeling? A vertical garden planted on a support (either stationary or even on a gate) can give as much or more privacy, while also extending your garden. EcoWalls 8. Vertical gardens let you plant without taking up floor space. When even a few pots would trip you up in a narrow yard, let your plantings creep up the wall instead. Vertical gardens can include anything from succulents to edibles, depending on available light and type of wall planter, so let your imagination run wild. Janet Paik 9. Vertical gardens bring the outside in. Create your own verdant sanctuary indoors with a lush green wall in the bath. Mossy plants do well in the humid conditions of the bathroom and create a soft, spa-like backdrop for soaking in the tub. Paintbox Garden 10. Vertical gardens can help cool our cities and refresh spirits. With their endless expanses of concrete and pavement, cities are usually lacking in the fresh greenery department, a deficiency that contributes to hotter temperatures in city centers. But if more buildings put their facades to work with vertical gardens — like the exterior walls of the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris, shown here — we could begin to cool and refresh our urban areas, making them more pleasant and comfortable for all.

Tell us: Do you have a vertical garden in (or on) your home? Share a photo in the Comments!