Discovering the best hanging plants for small apartments became my obsession when I moved into my current historic Paris apartment, where the traditional high ceilings were the first feature I noticed.Standing at nearly three metres high, they felt like an absolute architectural luxury after spending years cramped in standard-height, boxy rental rooms. However, the second …
I decided to grow chillies indoors partly out of stubbornness. I had read in traditional gardening manuals that they absolutely needed full southern sun and sweltering summer conditions, both of which my north-facing Paris apartment categorically did not provide. After two frustrating, failed attempts in the wrong window with inadequate light, I decided to stop …
Compact Composting Solutions for Small Apartments Without a Garden Learning how to compost in small apartments is not only entirely possible but also remarkably easy, requiring no outdoor space, creating no messy leaks, and producing almost zero foul odors. Living in a small, north-facing Paris apartment, traditional backyard composting piles or bulky rotating bins were …
The first cutting I propagated in water was a pothos stem I snipped off impulsively while repotting. I put it in a glass of water on the kitchen windowsill, forgot about it for two weeks, and came back to find a tangle of white roots growing from the node. That was three years ago. I …
Selecting efficient air-purifying plants for a small bedroom became necessary when I realized my current bedroom has only one window that faces a narrow internal courtyard. Opening it in summer means street noise and warm air from the building below. Keeping it closed means waking up with that particular stuffiness that comes from sleeping in …
Learning how to harvest tomatoes on a small balcony became my obsession the summer I decided to setup two small pots, while a neighbour looked at them with polite scepticism. By August, I was sharing tomatoes with her. Not many, but real ones, warm from the sun, with that particular depth of flavour that supermarket …
Discovering efficient self-watering pots for busy people saved my indoor garden after I killed three succulents in a row. Three. Succulents, widely described as the houseplant you cannot kill. After the third one, I stopped blaming myself and started looking at the actual problem: I was watering inconsistently, either too much or too little, with …
Designing a calming plant corner becomes essential in a studio apartment where every surface does multiple jobs. The desk is also the dining table. The sofa is also the reading chair. The bedroom is also the living room. Creating a plant corner in this context isn’t just about adding greenery, it’s about carving out one …
Finding the right indoor plants for a north-facing window became my obsession when my first apartment had only one window facing north in the main room. I placed a fiddle leaf fig there because it looked beautiful in the shop and the label said ‘bright indirect light.’ Within six weeks it had dropped every leaf …
Discovering efficient small balcony garden ideas changed my perspective when my small balcony in a cold European city didn’t seem like much of a garden at all. Short summers, unpredictable springs, winters that arrive before you’ve put the summer furniture away. I spent two years looking at my balcony as a place to store things …