Bringing flowers to your balcony or terrace isn’t just good for your mood, it’s also great for the environment . Having green and flowers in urban zones where insects, butterflies and birds tend to die out due to a lack of food and space, is a great thing everyone can do. If we all planted some flowers or even herbs on the balcony or on the window sill, there would be lots more insects and wildlife. Every little bit we do can make a big difference so what are we waiting for ? 😉
Goal : let’s bring Mother Nature into the city..
We spent the last 3 years living in a beautiful house with a huge garden in the countryside, 1 hour away from the city. As you can imagine, coming back to leave in a small flat in Paris was not easy, especially for our 6 pets who were used to run all day into the yard. So one of the key criteria for our new apartment was a balcony. And we got one! A lovely south-facing, wraparound 10m balcony. To get the best of this space, we called on a specialist, Thierry Halgand ( balcoon.fr), a landscape gardener specialized in balconies and terraces in France.
Balcoon.fr : get a professional without breaking the bank.
In general, when it comes to decorating your balcony, terrace or interior courtyard, people don’t really think about consulting with a specialist out of fear of spending an arm and a leg. However, calling on a gardener can be much cheaper than you might think, and it can certainly give you great ideas that you can always complete yourself, following the advice of the professional, or do the decorating at a later date when you have the budget. It’s not the plans and the ideas which are expensive, but the material, plants and installation are!
Balcoon.fr has several pricing points which adapt to everyone’s budget. I’ll give you a few examples.
>> The Ladybird option is the most well suited to small budgets and spaces less than 10m2. It’s cool as you can still use a gardener without breaking the bank. With this option, there is no meeting as everything is done by filling out a form online. Then, you get a book with the plans, visuals, planting guide and a quote for the installation and materials. The plans can evolve and you can change them if they don’t suit you – you just need to communicate via email with the specialist. Then you chose to either complete the work yourself or to entrust it to the gardener, in which case he or she takes care of everything. Price of this option : 390 euros (without layout of course).
>> The Butterfly option, that we chose, was a bit different as we didn’t do anything online . It’s an à la carte option, with several meetings and the work can be competed totally or partially – it’s up to you.
- 1stmeeting: The gardener comes to your house to take measurements, evaluate your needs, and those of your animals, as well as the constraints of the location etc.
- 2ndmeeting: He presents the project with complete plans, the plants he recommends according to which way the balcony is facing, and the layout proposed for your balcony. At this stage, you can either choose to buy the plans to do the work yourself, or approve the quote and the gardener will do the work himself.
- 3rdmeeting: We chose the “partial” option, which meant that the gardener did the work for the layouts and plants that we approved together and we did the rest ourselves.
>> Get 10% off on the layouts when coming on behalf of Magic Beans. More infos about Balcoon here .
The layout //
Step 1 // The basics
With the gardener, we opted for fake grass (super high quality, thick, soft, basically the best) and wooden fencing along the length of the wooden barrier, to give a beachy vibe and secure the barrier for rabbits and cats. I love it – it reminds me of the ocean. He also planted a big olive tree and a pine tree in big resin pots at the extremities of the balcony to give a more intimate feel and separate us a bit from the neighbour. For the rest of the work, it was down to us, following some of his propositions.
Before ..
After ..
Step 2 // Plant bags & cie
We discovered Bacsac®️, this super concept of hanging plant bags in fabric, which are really practical and quite pretty. They are also good for the plants as the textile used is permeable and allows them to breathe. The bacsacs®️ are eco-friendly, durable product, resistant and recyclable, so we set up a lot of them! There are lots of different models and colors, from large round pots to a green plant wall, there is so much choice. There are also straps to attach the wooden crates. Some bacsacs®️ work really well for decoration, like the brown felt bag for example, which looks great with a big green plant.
As for color, we went for 2 quite sober shades, taupe and beige (saint jacque stone) and for the models we chose three 3 x 25 L hanging window box, some felt fabric pots to put in the crates, 2 pairs of balcony braces to hang the famous crates, and an assortment of small, medium and large pots to hang as well.
Promo code Bacsac®️ : 20% off with the code MAGICBEANS on the Bacsac website.
Step 3 / Planting
As we had to fill all those Bagsac up, we got loads of things from Truffaut, soil, organic herbs and more. We really wanted a green space extending out from the living room, and a little garden with lots of fresh herbs for cooking. Setting up the Bacsacs®️ and planting is actually quite simple (just be aware that you need a lot of earth) and the plants seem to be doing really well in their new home. All that’s left to do is find an automatic watering system as, like with all plants, it’s a lot of work – especially if you travel a lot! I’ll keep you posted if we find something.
Ps: We also found wooden crates at Truffaut, which has a choice of different models. They are really cute! Some florists also offer some nice which you can order. They are a lot bigger and more expensive but you find some that are gorgeous, and like they have been found in a vintage market. Those ones were too big for us though, so we opted for smaller models.
Step 4/ Last touch
In the plans, the gardener suggested putting in cement stools and some other accessories, but in the end, we decided to stick on the less is more adage and outdoor cushions are doing the job just fine 😉 . We found a little hut that the rabbits and cats love hanging out in for the nap and we also put up 4 strings of lights that we found on Groupon! You can find lots of gems for a good price there. The lights are so pretty, and give a great ambiance in the evening.
So that’s it for our little green space, we are really happy with the result, we love having a tea there as well breakfast when it’s warm. Though the rabbits and cats are even happier than us – they can spend a whole day there. I hope all this will inspire you to bring some nature onto your balcony, your terrace or even your window ledge!
Bisous xxx
