There’s nothing better than sharing a passion with other enthusiasts.
When you get tired of hearing your friends and family moan when you talk about your balcony garden, it’s time to join a community of likeminded people.
Luckily, there are several. Some are 100% targeted at balcony gardening. Others are targeted at all kinds of gardening, and some on houseplants.
You can join as many or as few as you’ll like, but you’ll find value in every one of them.
Here you’ll be allowed to be proud and share pictures. You can ask questions and get help with problems, and you can help others with the problems.
You’ll find those communities on several different platforms. Here are some of the biggest ones.
Facebook Groups about Balcony Gardening
Not surprisingly, you’ll find several related groups on Facebook. And you can see before joining how many members there are and how active the group is.
You won’t be alone if you join some of these groups. The top ones have from 96,000 members all the way up to 1 million members. And you’ll see around 10 new posts in those groups per day.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=balcony%20gardening
If the group allows it, you can check the posts before joining, like it’s the case with one of the top three groups right now, Balcony Gardening:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/374892880365117/
You can even buy seeds and plants from that group.
Balcony Gardening Tips is a closed group with 1M members. You can request to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/945978689255337/
Balcony Gardens is an open group, and you can see pretty pictures and videos that members share in here. Lots of inspiration for your own balcony garden:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/501112379998521/
Before you join a group, make sure you read their rules so you know what you’re allowed to do and what you’re not allowed to do.
In most cases, groups have moderators who will kick you out and ban you for breaking their rules. That is necessary, especially in big groups which would otherwise quickly turn into battlefields if no one kept order.
Discord Groups
Discord was originally a platform for gamers, but now all kinds of communities use it. It’s free for everyone, including the group owners, unless they want extra features.
https://discord.com/servers?query=gardening
You can join Discord groups (called servers) by clicking an invitation link. Some groups are secret, but others are in Discord’s directory.
When you click on a group (server) you’re interested in, you’ll get a neat overview. It will tell you how many members there are on that server, and how many is online right now.
You’ll even see information like how chatty the group is, when it was created and more.
From all that information, you can decide whether or not this server is for you and click to join or not.
After you’ve joined a server, you’ll see different channels inside, marked with a hashtag (#) like this: #plant-advice.
These are like under-groups that you can follow or mute as you please. Most channels allow you to ask questions and reply to others. You can get a lot of interaction and fun out of participating on a Discord server.
Discord Group about Houseplants
There are no groups dedicated to balcony gardens within the directory, but there is one about houseplants.
Close enough? Right now, there are no groups specifically about balcony gardening, but a lot of the plants you’ll have out there will be houseplants, so why not join this group?
https://discord.com/servers/houseplants-567099257367035926
Discord Group about Gardening
This Discord group called Garden Revival and their purpose is to help each other with growing indoor and outdoor plants, flowers, vegetables, succulents, and more. So this will cover balcony gardening as well.
https://discord.com/servers/garden-revival-717605543430062090
Balcony Gardening on Quora
On Quora, you can ask questions about anything and join topics you’re interested in. And one of those topics are Balcony Gardening.
It’s a small topic on Quora, but there are recent questions and answers. You can read both earlier questions under this topic as well as participate yourself.
https://www.quora.com/topic/Balcony-Gardening
Balcony Gardening on Reddit
Reddit is a huge place with space for all kinds of interests and among them gardening and balcony gardening.
Before you join any community there, make sure to read their rules. Reddit moderators are known for banning people easily if they break any rule, and it would be a pity not being allowed to post because you did something you had no idea wasn’t permitted.
Once you’re allowed into a Reddit group, also called a subreddit, you can post questions, reply to questions or posts, and upvote or downvote posts as you please.
There’s a very active balcony gardening community on Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Balconygardening/
At the moment of this writing, their rules are gentle and easy to follow. You can read them in the About section to the right.
The group has 4.1K members so you’re not alone in your interest about balcony gardens. It was created in April, 2013, and with so long a history, it doesn’t seem to be a group that will go away any time soon.
Balcony gardening is here to stay.
If you decide to join a subreddit, you just need to click the Join-button at the top.
Is Joining a Community Worth Your Time
You need to take care of your balcony garden first and foremost. But what about the rest of your spare time?
Would you spend some of it in a community?
It’s highly rewarding to be among people who share the same interests. If you’re passionate about balcony gardening, that feeling is contagious. And if you’re a little tired of struggling with plant problems alone, you’ll find support and help within a group.
If you’re afraid of spending too much time in communities, you can allot time in a calendar. Google’s is free to use. Decide how much time you will spend and then leave when the time is up.
There’s much help, support, and joy to be found to be in a community, and when it’s online, you can share your passion with people from all over the world.