How to plan a balcony garden in Bengaluru

Count it again when the season turns. Bengaluru sits about 13 degrees north of the equator, and the sun is straight overhead at noon on 25 April and again on 18 August. Between those dates the midday sun is to the north, so a north-facing balcony gets direct sun. For the other eight months a south-facing one does if it's open to the sky; under the balcony above, mostly from October to February. A gardening book from Europe that says north means shade is wrong here. And the balcony above yours blocks more of the high midday sun than you'd think.

Bring new plants into hard sun slowly. Nursery plants grow under shade net, so even a sun plant can scorch in its first week on a hot west balcony. Keep it in the shadier corner for a few days first.

Roses want a sunny south or west balcony. PlantPets suggests creeper or button roses there, in as big a planter as you can fit, because they flower more and are easier to keep than the usual kind.

A balcony with no direct sun grows leaves slowly. Money plant and snake plant will live there, but expect few flowers. For flowers in that light, PlantPets reaches for hoyas:

Herbs and vegetables need your sunniest spot. A Better India article on Bengaluru gardens suggests tulsi, marigold, amaranth and drumstick, which cope with heat and short dry spells. With less than five hours you'll get leaves and few tomatoes, however well you water. Grow bags are a cheap way to start.

Three of the pictures are illustrations. The photo is PlantPets' work, and we don't know what that balcony cost.

Do it yourself if the balcony gets three hours of sun or more and someone's home most days. A dozen pots is a Saturday's work. Buy a spare plant or two, because some won't settle.

Pay someone when one of these is true:

• The light is poor or harsh, and you don't know what will live in it.
• You want it to look planned, with plants at different heights and the wall used.
• Nobody's home to water, so the plants and pots have to be chosen for that.

Greenedeck offer a free visit and a mood board before any work starts, so you can see a plan before you pay for one.

Where to buy plants yourself.

• The UAS GKVK horticulture department sells plants at its Bengaluru counter from ₹15 for tulsi and ₹20 for curry leaf to ₹50 for a seedless lemon, on its October 2024 price list.
• The nurseries round Lalbagh are the usual place to walk round. One gardening blog puts a small plant there at ₹20 to ₹50 and a medium one at ₹60 to ₹150.
• Online nurseries deliver here too. Check the pot size in the listing, since many send small plants.
• A neighbour. Money plant and tulsi grow from a cutting, so ask before you buy.

Pick a healthy plant. Look under the leaves for white fluff or fine webbing, which are pests. Tip the pot: roots pushing out of the hole mean it needs a bigger pot now. Choose one with new leaves coming.

As our curation team understands it, Sqft Farm's ₹50,000 might go on either a seating set, a swing and 2 or 3 mature plants, or grass over 100 to 200 sq ft, a wood panel on one wall and 4 or 5 plants. The contents vary. If you want a floor or a seat, read our balcony makeover guide.

Ten good-sized plants in plastic pots come to about ₹5,500 to ₹11,000. The same ten in planters on two stands, delivered, come to about ₹15,600 to ₹25,000. Those are our sums. Both use the same plants, and the same potting mix at ₹200 to ₹350 a pot. A plastic pot with its saucer is about ₹150 to ₹250, by our estimate. The pins on the photo below price a planter and a stand, and the planters add ₹1,500 to deliver and place. These are bigger plants in bigger pots than the dozen in question 2, which are ₹20 to ₹100 nursery plants in 10-inch pots.

What each piece in this corner costs new

Tap a number to see what it is and what it costs.

1234

1. 1

   A plant

   ₹200 to ₹500

   What most plants cost at Naviisha Greens, and ₹175 to ₹475 for common ones at Make Heaven My Garden. The same in plastic pots or in planters

   Add to my request: A plant
2. 2

   A planter, without its plant

   ₹650 to ₹960

   Naviisha Greens: fibreglass about ₹650, stoneware ₹750 to ₹800, a 12 inch rotomoulded one ₹960

   Add to my request: A planter, without its plant
3. 3

   A stand for a row of pots

   ₹1,800 to ₹2,700

   Naviisha Greens: a 2 ft stand is ₹1,800, and a metal stand that holds six planters ₹2,700

   Add to my request: A stand for a row of pots
4. 4

   A wall shelf

   Ask

   It's fixed to the wall, so if you rent, ask your landlord first. We hold no price for one

   Add to my request: A wall shelf

Most of the extra is the planters and stands. Matching planters look like one garden, and stands lift some plants up, so the wall gets used and the floor stays clear. Plastic pots give you the most green for the money, and a balcony full of them looks lush. PlantPets' ₹15,000 to ₹20,000 start covers the goods and her day setting it up, so ask her what it buys for your balcony.

Bigger plants cost more too. A ₹20 sapling from a nursery and a ₹300 plant from a provider are different sizes. A 2 to 4 ft feature plant is ₹500 to ₹650 at Sqft Farm. If one quote is much higher, ask how tall the plants are.

Want the look for less? Buy the planters and stands yourself and pay someone only to plant them. On the providers' own quotations, a gardener's day is ₹1,000 to ₹1,800. A neat look can also come from sorting what you already own: the PlantPets balcony in these photos began as about 100 mixed planters.

Ask what a visit includes before you sign up. Manure, pest spray and replacing a dead plant are often extra. Bangalore Agrico's plan includes feed and spray, and bills heavy work and extra hours on top. Mealybug spreads from one pot to the next, so ask whether pests are treated on the visit.

You can say no to the monthly plan. If you'd rather learn it yourself, ask whoever sets it up how much to water each plant and when to feed it, and write it down.

More balcony plants die of too much water than too little. A pot with no hole, a saucer that stays full through the monsoon, or a drip left on its summer setting in July drowns the roots.

Water with what you can. When Bengaluru runs short, BWSSB bans using drinking water for gardens. Its February 2025 order named gardening and set a ₹5,000 fine for a first offence. Reports of its July 2026 order disagree on whether gardens are in it, and none says whether pots on a balcony count. Some flats water their plants with the waste water from their RO purifier.

In the humid months, June to August, a shade plant like peace lily can go eight to ten days without water.

Plan it before you plant. If you're away a week every month, say so on the first call. It changes which plants and pots get chosen. Thick-leaved plants like snake plant manage alone far better than a hibiscus.

Drip needs a tap, and someone to change the timer. Many balconies have no tap, and getting water there is a plumber's job that isn't in a garden quote. When the rains start, the timer has to be turned down, and back up when they stop. A Better India article on Bengaluru gardens suggests drip or clay-pot watering for when you're away.

A garden firm won't cover your trip. Their visits are a week or more apart, and the gardeners on this page sell no daily watering.

Your mali may be away when you are. Malis go home for festivals too, so the weeks you travel at Diwali or in December may be the weeks he's gone. Line up a second person.

Why living walls fail on balconies. Each pocket holds a little soil, so it dries fast in sun and wind. The drip has to run every day, and a blocked line or a dead timer can kill a row of plants while you're away. The wall behind stays damp. Keerthi Gilla of PlantPets says when a living wall is the right call:

Artificial costs less only when it's plain. Plain green is ₹450 to ₹800 a sq ft, below most live walls. An artificial wall with flowers, at ₹1,000 to ₹1,500, can cost more than a live one.

Pots let you start small, fixed to the wall like these, or hooked onto a metal grid like PlantPets' work in question 2. Hang railing pots on the inside of the railing.

Kits you put up yourself cost less. One seller's guide puts a felt pocket or modular kit at ₹1,650 to ₹3,000, or ₹4,700 to ₹9,800 with a basic drip kit. Pockets hold the least soil and dry fastest, so they suit a shaded wall and someone home to water.

Anything on the outside of the building may need your association's yes, so ask before a wall goes up outside the railing.

The weight. India's building code designs a balcony floor to carry about 300 kg a square metre, people and furniture included. Twelve pots of wet soil weigh about 95 to 155 kg, or about 23 to 37 kg a square metre on a 45 sq ft balcony, by our sum. A raised bed a foot deep is another matter: at about 1,600 kg a cubic metre, wet soil comes to nearly 500 kg a square metre. Put the heaviest pots against the wall of the flat, near where the balcony is held.

Falls. A child in Pune died when a pot fell from a balcony. In May 2025 Noida's authority told its housing societies to take pots off parapet walls, and Lucknow's did the same a few days later. On a high floor, wind knocks light pots over and snaps tall plants, so use heavier pots up there and stake anything tall.

Leaks and stains. Water that runs out of a pot goes to the floor drain or over the edge onto the balcony below. A saucer catches it. Pots set straight on the tiles leave rings and moss, so raise them on feet, and keep dry leaves and soil out of the drain. Many societies don't allow planters hung outside the railing, so ask before you hang any.

Mosquitoes. Water left standing in saucers and trays breeds them. In February 2025 the Karnataka High Court told BBMP to fine homes and societies that leave stagnant water standing.

Some plants won't settle. A plant moved from a nursery's shade net to your balcony takes weeks to settle, and a few don't make it. PlantPets says a rose can go through a rough patch for a couple of months after it's repotted.

Settle what counts as their fault. The usual argument is that the plant died because of how it was watered. So before the advance, agree how often each plant gets water, get it in writing, and photograph the plants the day they go in. Ask when the 30 days start counting.

Ask what costs extra. A site visit is ₹700 to ₹1,000 within 10 km of RR Nagar at Make Heaven My Garden. Sqft Farm add GST and charge transport by the job.