Bringing the Outdoors to your Rental Flat

A common feature of rental properties is a distinct lack of outdoor space.  You might think that if you live in a city centre flat, an old tenement, or anywhere with a landlord who is (understandably) precious about their walls, that you can’t have any greenery in your property.  We’re here to show you otherwise!

Bringing the outdoors indoors has a multitude of benefits. First of all, it’s great for your mental health.  Having indoor plants can reduce stress levels and aid your concentration, especially if you work at a computer all day, and they improve the quality of the air in the room.  As if that wasn’t enough, it also looks great and can really freshen up your rooms.  Here are our tips for bringing the outdoors to your rental flat (while also keeping your landlord happy).

Indoor Plants

First and foremost, indoor plants are an easy and quick way of getting some greenery in your flat.  You can get trendy and attractive containers made by companies like Elho that will fit any style.  Once you’ve chosen a container to suit your aesthetic there is plenty of advice out there about what plants you should pick.  NASA recommends Aloe Vera and Chinese Evergreen as they purify the air (plus they look quite alien).  Central heating can damage your plants, so make sure you mist them once in a while.  You also need to keep your plants in the sun – window ledges or small balconies are ideal.  Don’t have any direct sunlight in your flat?  You could always try making a DIY moss wall.

Vertical Gardening

We can hear the cries now – “but Lettingweb, I don’t have the space for this sort of thing!” Well never fear – green spaces don’t have to be long, flat, wide things.  You can get hooks that won’t damage your walls and then hang up small containers to take your plants to the skies!  If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you could use the aforementioned hooks to hang up clean guttering to grow small plants and herbs in.  This method has the added advantage of being incredibly trendy.

Air Plants

Air plants, unsurprisingly, do not require soil to grow in.  They’re very low maintenance and will quite happily sit on a shelf, mantelpiece or window ledge.  They also look very futuristic, if you like that sort of thing.

We’d love to see how you’ve brought the outdoors inside – get in touch on Twitter and Facebook!