Living in a highly urbanized location can be stressful. Every day as you step out of your home and go about your routine, you constantly deal with pollution coming from vehicles all around, and there simply isn’t enough greenery to refresh your eyes and soul. You mostly see things in unnatural hues, or a whole lot of gray.
For many people, cultivating a compact garden is the closest they can get to interacting with nature in the midst of city real estate. However, if you live in a high-rise apartment building, all the ground you get is concrete. So, what can you do to begin the refreshing transformation of your swanky high-rise unit, currently devoid of a garden you can till into a lovely green haven?
Good news: Quite a lot!
Here are some excellent ideas, from leading property developers in the UAE, for letting nature into your high-rise unit amid the busy concrete jungle.
- Turn natural elements into art.
Instead of hanging up paintings on the wall, collect leaves and flowers to frame. You don’t even need a fancy leaf press for this project. Place the leaves and flowers that you have gathered between two pieces of paper, and slip those between the pages of a big and heavy book.
Once the leaves and flowers are dry, place them in a picture frame and hang them on your wall.
- Create a vertical garden.
If your unit has a veranda, you can use the parapet enclosing the space to grow a vertical garden. Professionals from local landscaping companies share that there are different approaches you can take to create one; perhaps the easiest way, though, is to attach a trellis to the wall and hang small pots with different plants from it.
You can use the same strategy for an indoor vertical garden. Just find a wall that you can attach a steel mesh to, and start building your collection of various hanging potted greens.
To make the garden more than just a beautiful natural element to admire in your home, include some edible plants. Herbs like basil, oregano, fennel, lemongrass, sage, rosemary and thyme can thrive in small pots that you can keep indoors or on your windowsill. You can the use these for cooking or making your own tea.
- Use moss tiles on a wall.
If the unit is yours – meaning you have it under your name and you aren’t just renting the place (because you were smart enough to take advantage of a good off plan property deal), you can customize a wall or two with moss tiles.
Moss thrives on its own; it just needs air and bit of sun. Covering your wall with moss is really a smart way of bringing nature in because it can purify the air in your home and even get rid of funky odors. Most importantly, the lovely green hue of moss is a treat for the eyes.
You can purchase moss tiles from local gardening stores; the cost of the initial purchase is all the money you’ll have to dole out.
- Make terrariums that you can display in different parts of the house.
A terrarium will not only be a source of visual delight for you; it can also provide you a mini gardening experience if you choose to make one yourself.
Hobby stores sell terrarium kits and you can dedicate nothing more than an hour or so to putting them together. Terrariums make lovely decorative and conversation pieces, and you can place them anywhere in your house.
- Display succulents.
Small pots of cacti and other types of succulents are perfect for high-rise units, especially those with limited space. In fact, they are the preferred natural décor pieces among people who practice a minimalist lifestyle; succulents are low maintenance, and despite their small size, an assortment of pretty succulent varieties can immediately liven up a room.
- Create a mini water garden.
You don’t need a big fish tank for this. You can just use a glass hurricane or any big, clear bottle that you have at home. Fill it with water, decorate it with aquatic plants, a few pebbles and some cute figurines, and then put a low-maintenance fish in it (examples are Bettas, Black Mollies, Platies, and Swordtails). Voila! You now have a miniature ecosystem at home.
Bringing nature into your home is quite easy. Try these ideas out today to create your personal “natural” sanctuary in your high-rise unit.
AUTHOR BIO
Aliya Siraeva has been in the marketing field for the last 5 years. Currently based in Dubai, she works as digital marketing manager for Elite City Real Estate. She graduated from Kazan State University in Russia with Philology degree in languages. She is also currently pursuing an MSC degree in digital marketing from Heriot-Watt university.
