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With warmer days and balmy evenings ahead, your balcony beckons! Size doesn't matter! Even the coziest outdoor space can be transformed into your own private paradise, perfect for morning coffee breaks, relaxing with a good book, or enjoying cocktails and dinner at sunset. The key is to treat your outdoor space as you would an indoor room. Pick a theme – such as classic contemporary, beachy, exotic, or tiki-cool – then decide on a color scheme. Consider an outdoor rug or accent pillows for a cohesive, pulled together look. Add lush greenery with a micro kitchen garden – herbs, edible flowers, mini vegetables, and even small potted fruits will add color, and grace your table with healthy home-grown produce!
Many home improvement stores and local nurseries are offering home delivery and curbside pickup. Here are some ideas to get you inspired!
Create a Balcony Kitchen Garden
Transform your outdoor space into a kitchen garden – and reward yourself with a harvest of aromatic herbs, fresh and organic vegetables, and juicy plump fruits with great flavor that you can never get from store bought edibles! You’ll need to dedicate some time to look after the plants you’ve chosen to grow – 15 minutes a day should be enough for the most basic tasks like watering, pinching, and pruning. Balcony Garden Web has some great tips on how to get started and how to maximize your space with vertical gardening.
If you’re new to edible gardening, start with herbs! They are the easiest plants to grow and you can put them anywhere as long as they receive a few hours of sunlight a day. You can start from seeds or buy the plants from your nearby nursery. Chive, mint, thyme, basil, oregano, parsley, cilantro are great choices to add a burst of flavor to your favorite recipes. Balcony Garden Web has some creative ideas on how to maximize your herb growing space on a small balcony, and add interest to your garden with hanging baskets, weathered cans, vertical pouch planters, and re-purposed wooden pallets.
The Home Depot 5600 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028
The Home Depot has some great ideas on how to bring your balcony or patio to life with container gardening. Fill planters with flowering plants of your choice, set up flower boxes to adorn your railing, or create a simple shelf to hold smaller potted greenery. Go the extra mile by installing a plant trellis made from wood or plastic. Place the trellis against a wall and let the plants grow vertically. This takes up less space and is an efficient way to add a garden on smaller balconies. Your balcony trellis can also be positioned as a protective screen to offer additional privacy. The Home Depot offers curbside pick up and delivery. Just place your order online.
Add comfort and style to your balcony oasis with throw pillows. Available from Home Depot in a variety of colors, sizes and shapes, they also provide visual intrigue to your outdoor space and can help convey your decor theme. Spruce up the whole space with an outdoor area rug. They add both color and texture to the area with very little effort.
Lowe's 4550 West Pico Blvd Unit D-101 Los Angeles, CA 90019
Located in Mid-City Los Angeles, your local Lowe’s has everything you need to create dream balcony. They offer a wide variety of healthy plants and flowers, as well as outdoor furniture and accessories. Curbside pickup is available.
Crate and Barrel Outdoor Lighting
String lights add a warm glow to any outdoor space. Recreate the night-time romance of a Parisian bistro by hanging string lights in a crisscross pattern under your balcony roof or add illuminated wall art by arranging them in a geometric pattern on a solid outdoor wall. Use string lights with smaller bulbs (similar to the holiday variety) all year round to dress up balcony railings, large plants or trellises. For subtle glow and sparkle, look for tiny bulbs strung along a delicate wire wrap. Crate and Barrel also offers small space outdoor furniture and accessories. Order online for home delivery.
Sunset Nursery 4368 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90039
Sunset Nursery has been family owned and operated since 1959. Add pizzazz to your balcony with an array of colorful cacti and succulents, California native and drought tolerant plants. They also offers flower pots imported from all over the world and an extensive line of organic fertilizers and eco-friendly plant products to keep your plants happy and healthy. Located in the heart of Silver Lake, at this time, Sunset Nursery is doing drive-thru pickup orders only. To make a purchase, review the inventory online, then call 323-661-1642 to place your order and arrange pick up.
Mickey Hargitay Plants 1255 N Sycamore Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90038
Plant yourself in one of Los Angeles' premiere nurseries, whose clients include Sony Design Center, Whole Foods Market, Calvin Klein Studio, Tommy Hilfiger, and an astonishing list of celebrities. The 1,500-square-foot greenhouse is home to a wide selection of indoor and outdoor tropical plants of all sizes. They also stock decorative containers in Italian Terra Cotta, Malaysian and Chinese Ceramics, Mexican Red Clay and Rattan baskets. At this time, the store is limiting access to one shopper at a time and are accepting credit card payment only. To place a curbside pickup order or delivery, please call 323-467-8044 the day you plan on heading over.
Photo credits:
Photo #1: IKEA
Photo #2: Balcony Garden Web
Photo #3: Balcony Garden Web
Photo #4: The Home Depot
Photo #5: The Home Depot
Photo #6: Lowe's Home Improvement
Photo #7: Crate and Barrel
Photo #8: Sunset Nursery
Photo #9: Mickey Hargitay Plants
The post Create a Garden Oasis On Your Balcony! appeared first on The Mansfield at Miracle Mile Blog.
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If you're searching for the perfect accessory to spruce up your home in the New Year, consider becoming a plant parent! House plants are ideal for urban living – they bring nature into your home and studies indicate that plants reduce stress, help purify the air, reduce noise, improve wellness and even increase your creativity. Plants also add drama and energy to your home decor. If you have a furry friend, make sure that your new plant family members are non-toxic to nibbling pooches and felines. Check out this list of pet-friendly flowers & plants from Teleflora. Now that you're ready for plant-parenthood, here are some inspiring ideas to get you started.
As with any kind of home decor, a houseplant collection looks best when you’ve got variety – of leaf, shape, texture, color, and size. And that means sometimes you have to go big. Large leaf houseplants can tie a room together and lend an air of tropical tranquility your desk cactus just can’t achieve, no matter how hard it tries. Looking for inspiration? Apartment Therapy has some great suggestions for big leaf houseplants to bring big style to your home.
The Plant Provocateur 3318 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90026
Owner Hank Jenkins admits that he's obsessed with plants and how they influence beauty, design, and lifestyle. Originally from the backwoods of Michigan, the garden designer, author, and former glam rock band front, has a mission to "Inspire with Plants" and encouirages folks to aspire to the beauty plants provide. Specializiing in unique and sometimes hard-to-find house plants, The Plant Provocateur also sells planting supplies and a curated selection of vases, jars, pots, and other interesting display vessels.
Sunset Blvd Nursery 4368 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90039
Located in the heart of Silverlake on the corner of Sunset Blvd & Fountain Ave., Sunset Nursery has been family owned and operated since 1959. The nusery carries a wide selection of house plants, from small to large, to freshen your interior. Add pizzaz to your balcony with an array of colorful cacti and succulents, California native and drought tolerant plants. They also offer flower pots imported from all over the world and an extensive line of organic fertilizers and eco-friendly plant products to keep your plants happy, healthy, and all-natural.
Mickey Hargitay Plants 1255 N Sycamore Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90038
Plant yourself in one of Los Angeles' premiere nurseries, whose clients include Sony Design Center, Whole Foods Market, Calvin Klein Studio, Tommy Hilfiger, and an astonishing list of celebrities. The 1,500-square-foot greenhouse is home to a wide selection of indoor and outdoor tropical plants of all sizes. They also stock decorative containers in Italian Terra Cotta, Malaysian and Chinese Ceramics, Mexican Red Clay and Rattan baskets. More than a store, Mickey Hargitay Plants can help with your interior and exterior landscape and design needs. They also offer a guaranteed indoor plant maintenance service, with a weekly visit by one of their expertly-trained technicians.
6 Easy Ways to Keep Your Plants Alive During the Dark Days of Winter
Baby, it’s cold outside, and since your indoor plants can’t exactly slip on a sweater, the change in season means attending to them with a little extra care. Well and Good has some tips for keeping your plants happy and healthy, like increasing the light with a grow light, stabilizing indoor temperature, skipping the fertilizer, and remembering to dust!
Bloomscape Subscription Service for Plants
Everyone should live with a little more green – and Bloomscape is here to help strengthen your relationship with plants. They make buying plants easy by delivering healthy, ready-to-go plants to your door and setting you up with the tips and tricks you need to help your plants thrive. plants make life better. Bloomscape comes from five generations of greenhouse growers and floral industry innovators, and their roots go all the way back to ancestors who were pioneers in the Netherlands’ horticulture industry. Plants are shipped with care and experience, at the right temperature to protect their roots and keep them healthy while they travel from the greenhouse to your home.
Let Your Plants Play Music, and Gardens of Sound Will Bloom
PlantWave turns a plant's biorhythms into music. Just attach two sensors to a plant’s leaves and PlantWave connects wirelessly to an iOS or Android device running the app. PlantWave converts the electrical conductivity of houseplants into audio, giving plants the chance to sing, by detecting slight electrical variations on the leaves. These variations are graphed as a wave, which is translated into pitch messages that play musical instruments designed by the PlantWave team. Other characteristics of the wave change the textural qualities of those sounds. The result is a continuous stream of pleasing music that gives you a sonic window into the secret life of plants.
If you want to live longer, surround yourself with plants
If you want to live longer, live around green space. That’s the simple conclusion of the largest analysis ever performed on the relationship between the environment and human longevity – ever. Eight million people. Seven countries. One simple finding: People who lived near more green space lived longer than people who lived near less. All the more reason to put some plants in your life!
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