How to bring green spaces in everyday life for improved wellness 

Creating green spaces in everyday life

1. Balcony and window boxes

To use these spaces, you need tools like pots, vertical planters, and hanging baskets. In these tools, you can grow herbs and flowers of the small variety, like miniature marigolds, mini petunias, thyme, and oregano. If using a balcony, you can blend with small artificial grass that solidify the ‘nature feel.’

2. Gardens

Gardens can be put up anywhere there is sufficient space and access to rain and sun, like pocket parks, backyards, and rooftops. Depending on space, a garden can hold plants like tomatoes, leafy vegetables (kale), herbs (basil, chives, parsley), and flowers (lobelia, pansy). 

Planting can be carried out directly onto a seedbed, seed containers, and creative variations like breathable bags, worn-out tires, and clothes as long as they can hold soil and moisture.

3. Green walls and fences

These are vertical plants that are grown on walls and fences. They can be erected on pockets mounted on walls or left to naturally intertwine on existing structures. They work on stony walls and wire fencing. Sometimes, the plants themselves are the fence, which is grown around a home and carefully trimmed to create a tight natural wall that serves the purpose of security and aesthetics.

Suitable plants include creeping fig, English and Boston ivy, Virginia creeper, trailing rosemary, periwinkle, sweet potato vines, sedum, and ice plant, amongst others.

4. Indoor plants

These are plants that are grown indoors in pots for specific purposes and placed strategically in the home or office or shared spaces like religious institutions. They can be placed on the ground or hung from the ceiling. They are:

• Snake/spider plant- used to promote air quality

• Peace lily/Boston fern- used to balance humidity

• Devil’s ivy- visual calm and aesthetics

• Rubber plant- grown for promoting oxygen exchange

• Lavender- improve symptoms of anxiety and supports sleep.

• Rosemary- for cognitive stimulation

• Mint/basil- aromatic stimulation

• Monstera/majesty palm- aesthetics

5. Protected forests and riverbanks

Forests can be planted or protected if already existing. In cities, this can be accomplished by planting trees and flowers in places like sidewalks, pocket spaces (between buildings and empty plots), street roads, and beside community gardens. 

Riverbanks are also fenced off and protected from littering, illegal water harvesting, and planting of trees that have aggressive, water-hungry roots like willows and silver maples.